Ad Interim
by HUNKxTofu
Summary: The Rift's greatest thief falls in love with its greatest city watchperson. Written for the Skyrim Kink Meme. (Artwork by me.)
1. Caught Off Guard

Original prompt (2011/11/25): ""PC/Guard - Stop right there criminal scum!

"The PC is a thief in Riften and the guard has seen them one too many times. No more bribes, no more 'I'm the Thane!' and such. Only one sort of payment is left to get out of this mess and avoid prison - the sexy kind. No violent rape please, though dub-con is okay. Don't care about the gender or race of either the PC, but I'm thinking of the guard as a male.

"Brownie points: work in the glorious past lines of the Oblivion guards during the sex and win my undying devotion."

**A/N: **The original LiveJournal meme is dead, or I would've posted this there too. The current/new one is on Dreamwidth, where I yesterday posted a slightly less proofread (damn!) version of this. I have a ton more stuff I want to elaborate on, but let's just skip that . . . this time. Feel free to ask me anything, though, ideally by PM. Short elaboration: Yet another experimentation/writing exercise. I tried to focus on character and personality stuff. I also made up a ton of minor characters (in the game they'd be named NPCs ), and a tavern, which makes this slightly AU, I guess. I've been so busy lately I probably won't do a second draft of this (whereas I definitely should of "Goodsprings Scorpion Scramble").

Please tell me what you think of this! The only reason I post things here is for feedback.

* * *

**AD INTERIM**

**I: Caught Off Guard**

_Middas, 10 Midyear, Year 202 of the Fourth Era_

Tluldir, guild master of the Thieves Guild of Skyrim and the last Dragonborn, picked yet another person's pockets—this time netting about 12 septims from a purse on a woman's belt and a plain silver ring from one of the woman's fingers (damn fine grab, that, even if it was worth nothing)—probably the thousand-and-five-hundredth time she'd successfully stolen things right off people without their noticing. All was well—

Then disaster struck: Tluldir heard the tone and presumed authority of some city guard's voice before she saw him. Luck was still hers—women guards were sometimes difficult to make go away, but men were easy, easier than pickpocketing. The disaster was that she got caught. That was professionally humiliating and annoyingly inconvenient enough to ruin Tluldir's afternoon.

Oh, right, it _was_ broad daylight. That had been a poor choice of environment for picking pockets (and/or fingers), one she'd made without thinking. The location had been solid, though; Tluldir had been following the woman for a few minutes—she was alone, and worse than that, for her (better for Tluldir), chose a desolate residential side-walkway for a shortcut around the market's lunchtime crowds. The city had been getting more and more populated lately, Tluldir would give her that much; the rest, Tluldir would take. The woman held herself like royalty, but she was clearly poor. Malnourished. Tluldir doubted anybody cared about her. So she'd have no one to send after Tluldir, even if she caught Tluldir in the act, and no money to hire thugs with, whenever she noticed her things missing.

But the poor young woman didn't catch Tluldir in the act—some Riften city guard did. A male, but still _someone_. And worse than that, a guard. The dumbest yet most entitled-behaving population in all Tamriel.

"Stop! By order of the jarl!" the guard said. Unusually, his voice had some force to it. Tluldir felt herself stopping.

He was already quite close. And Tluldir so focused on her mark that she'd had no idea; she just _assumed _no guards were about. Tluldir was so shocked at her own failings she actually _did _stop right where she was.

"Not you, Golgivah," the guard said, to Tluldir's mark, as Tluldir looked to the guard. "Will you stay nearby for a moment, please?" he said to Tluldir's mark. He sounded normal, but he seemed to be moving in slow motion. Perhaps that was Tluldir's terror affecting her perception.

There were a few . . . problems with the guard. First, he was huge. More than six-and-a-half feet tall. Tluldir herself was taller than an average Redguard, taller than most women, and taller than most guards she encountered, but this man was much taller than her. At least a head taller. He seemed skinny, though. Maybe that was because he wore less armour than a normal guard, less than any other rank-and-file city watch-person she'd ever seen in Skyrim. He wore a boiled leather jack with black studs and short sleeves—summer in Skyrim—which was unique but unremarkable, and the typical guard's quilted chest-and-groin-length armor with no sleeves, but a cloth long-sleeved top under that (unusual), as well as the requisite Stormcloak or Stormcloak-held-territory-watchperson's banner-sash; he also wore very nice boots—fine leather, far from the cheap fur of other Stormcloaks and Stormcloak watchpeople, and he wore no helm at all, closed or open. Which revealed a face, which Tluldir was shocked to see for two reasons: first that a city watchperson had any face at all (she'd always suspected they had no faces under those helms), and second that his face was _beautiful_. He was incredibly handsome. A problem—that he was a real person now, and that she wanted to _fuck_ that real person. He had a strange hairstyle she hadn't seen but once or twice—most of his head was shaved bare, apparently around a week ago, except for a strip down the middle. That strip was short. He—it—would stand out in a crowd, so Tluldir couldn't sport it herself, but it looked very appropriate for the next few seasons' weather, if you were acclimated to Skyrim, which he clearly was. The haircut was appropriate to the extreme, though—it was still Skyrim; it was still cold compared to the rest of Tamriel. Tluldir wouldn't have expected so little hair on a man anyplace but back home—in Hammerfell, in the hot desert. People said Elseweyr had deserts too, but she'd never seen nor felt them herself.

So, whoever the guy thought he was, he was some kind of hot shot—a "cool guy," as one of Tluldir's friends who'd fought in the Great War for the Empire had described fellow Imperial soldiers who bothered to supply their own equipment instead of normal issued gear. Meaning . . . Tluldir wasn't sure what, really, she'd never met a cool guy. She didn't feel safe anymore; she felt threatened, as the apex predator of all Skyrim's thieves. Technically she'd broken just about every law Skyrim, The Rift and Riften had, at least one of them in this particular cool guy's field of view, so she—a lawbreaker—_should _feel uneasy, but still, she wasn't just any lawbreaker, she was Tluldir the Swift, a famous thief even before she'd joined the only Thieves Guild there was in Skyrim. And, she was in _Riften_. Thieves' capital of Skyrim. The city's watch protected no one, and nothing but the appearance of legitimacy. For poor gormless Jarl Laila Law-Giver's court, and sometimes their own coin purses. With her confidence rejuvenated, Tluldir shrugged off her fear.

"Very well," Tluldir's mark said. She probably had a name, but Tluldir preferred to think of her as nothing more than her mark—as an object, a thing to steal other things from. Such made the theft simpler.

"Do you know who I am, _guard_?" Tluldir said.

"Yes I do," Cool-Guy Guard said like it didn't matter, like her position didn't matter, yet again disarming Tluldir. "Return what you stole," he ordered, more gently than she would've expected any guard to order anything, but no less authoritative.

Tluldir inventoried what she'd just stolen, and prepared her normal "it's about the principle of the thing" retort, then heard . . . _something_. She looked.

It was a dog. A big dog. It looked very fast. And like it wouldn't shirk violence. And it wasn't an Irish Wolfhound, marking it as unlike every other dog in Skyrim—this was a large dog, whatever breed it was, though not a small horse like the fully-grown Wolfhounds were. This dog was analyzing and watching her like the guard was—like she was caught prey. Tluldir didn't like that. Not one bit. She probably couldn't outrun the guard, but she'd _never_ outrun the dog. It looked like it'd been bred for speed, and for ripping people's Achilles tendons or throats (or both) out. The dog's coat was thin, and in color what common farmerfolk called "blue." It bore a collar but no leash. Tluldir had actually seen violent dogs before, and the kinds that would really hurt you didn't bark or growl; they were like wolves, silent. They usually still warned you, but it was nowhere near so obviously as by barking. She feared this dog, unlike Irish Wolfhounds—no matter how big those things were, or how angry they got, they still looked fuzzy and cuddly to her, not like they'd ever want to hurt anything . . . and not like they'd enjoy such.

"I didn't steal anything," Tluldir said. It was supposed to sound casual and off-handed, dismissive, but it sounded defensive, fearful.

Keeping his eyes locked on Tluldir, Cool-Guy Guard said to her mark, "My lady, will you please come to the Riften Jail either tonight or tomorrow? At your convenience. So I may return what she stole."

Tluldir's mark turned to face Tluldir, then backed away toward Cool Guy. Tluldir's mark was a Dunmer, a dark elf, apart from a very young lady. Clean—Tluldir had noticed the lady (no, the mark) didn't smell like shit or offal, or stink of mead or ale, the way most people in Skyrim did, but Tluldir had assumed she—it—would be dirt-smeared in the face or some such, and defying all logic the lady—mark—was actually clean, like she bathed every few weeks, perhaps even days. That was nearly as often as Tluldir herself bathed. The dark elf mark looked familiar. The poor mark also looked terrified. Tluldir accidentally took her eyes off Cool Guy and/or his attack dog and glanced at her mark just in time to see the mark checking her fingers before anything else; then the mark became distraught.

"My ring!" the mark shrieked. "My first lover gave me that ring! The Red Year ruined his house, that was all they had left—" Her eyes burned.

"Oh, shut up," Tluldir said with scorn. "You just made that up." As she said that, Tluldir inadvertently turned that same ring over in one of her hands. She was almost certain Cool Guy saw that—eyes drawn to motion, and he looked in the correct angle—but then her mark saw it too, and got even worse.

"It's right there!" Tluldir's mark yelped, panicking. "In her hand!"

Cool Guy took a step toward Tluldir, and she instinctively fled. Not cleverly—she was terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought—but in the direction most _away _from Cool Guy, Cool Guy's dog, and her mark—a straight line in the opposite bearing.

"Curro!" Cool Guy ordered instantly. Tluldir didn't want to know what it meant.

Tluldir ran, and heard little nails clicking on wood, and got maybe three long fear-powered strides before one of her legs got pulled fast out from under her. At once, this _wall_ hit her. It was the wood of a Riften walkway, Tluldir noticed before the pain hit. She'd fallen.

First it was sharp pain in her ankle, then it was massive dull pain over almost the entirety of the front side of her body, especially over her face and on her tits. She started groaning quickly. Her head hurt.

She didn't drop the ring, though. It was still in her fist. Worthless as it was.

"Yes!" Tluldir heard her mark cheering. "Instant justice!"

Someone moved her arms, but Tluldir was confident it wasn't herself. It was hard to tell which way was up. Pain everywhere. She was being . . . lifted? She was massively dizzy.

"Golgivah, did you hear me before?" Cool Guy said to Tluldir's mark, all business.

"I did," Tluldir's mark said defiantly.

The whole world spun. Colors warped; all was unfocused. Tluldir had this sensation of moving, but she couldn't be sure.

"Can I come with you to the jail? Now?" Tluldir's mark continued.

"Please don't," Cool Guy said.

Tluldir's arms tingled, as if poked all over from the inside with dozens of sharp sewing needles. Then, she noticed, she could feel her arms again. She hadn't been aware of _not _feeling them. They were hard to move. Her arms were behind her. Bent strangely against her back. Held fast, by . . . something. It felt like iron. Or very tight rope.

"She won't go easy," Cool Guy said further. "It's not safe."

"Can I—" the mark began.

Cool Guy interrupted, "Don't. Give me a few hours."

Tluldir noticed—her ankle still hurt, but she wasn't dragging Cool Guy's dog along with her as she moved. Or so it felt. She still couldn't see clearly. It must've been the dog that tripped her. Though it had felt like rope had been attached to her calf and someone had abruptly pulled it taut all at once, and also tied the other end of the rope to a copse of deeply-rooted trees at the same time. So the dog had released her, at some point. She hadn't noticed when. And her eyes still wouldn't focus, which was alarming, but she was definitely walking. No—being led forward.

"I need my ring, at least," the mark begged.

Cool Guy said close to one of Tluldir's ears (she couldn't determine which): "Give the ring back."

"What ring?" Tluldir said. She sounded sick.

Suddenly Tluldir was falling. She heard a solid wood thunk—Cool Guy had let her fall to her knees. She hardly felt it. She didn't think he did it to inflict pain, though—it would be hard to outrun anyone on her knees. "Give the lady her ring back, or I swear, I'll break your arm holding it and return it for you," Cool Guy said, characteristically cooly, and braced to actually do that. He was surprisingly quick and extremely strong—he could do it. Throwing her around seemed to trouble him no more than doing the same to a rag doll toy would have. He sounded ready to break her arm, too. It was her left arm. She was right-handed.

"That's excessive," Tluldir said.

"I would say stealing from a poor young woman is excessive," Cool Guy said.

He switched his preparing-to-break arm-hold to her right arm.

_Oh, fuck, he remembered which hand I took it with_, Tluldir thought. _He actually saw me doing it_. That hadn't happened before. Ever.

"Last chance," Cool Guy said. "I know what I saw. The ring is not for you. You don't have to admit anything. Return the ring. I'll buy you another on the way to jail if you want one so badly. You simply can't have _that_ one."

Somehow, the extent to which that promise shocked Tluldir emotionally cancelled out her lingering physical shock—her ankle and face still hurt, and her eyes wouldn't quite focus, but she otherwise felt quite normal again all at once.

Tluldir turned her head and looked Cool Guy in the eyes. He had lovely eyes. They'd been cruel before. He was so close—his eyes were silver, but now she saw abundant warmth in them. Certainty, but no judgment. "What?" Tluldir said. It came out quietly. She couldn't make out the rest of his face, only the eyes.

One of his arms held her still, but she felt what was probably one of his hands come directly beneath her right hand's palm. His eyes stayed warm. Forgiving. Appealing.

Tluldir dropped the nigh-worthless silver ring into Cool Guy's hand. She heard nothing, only felt its absence. He caught it. For the life of her, Tluldir didn't know why she surrendered it willingly.

Tluldir looked at the walkway in front of her.

"Vigilia," Cool Guy ordered, Tluldir assumed to the dog because she hadn't the slightest notion what the word meant, and it definitely wasn't to Tluldir's mark.

"Do you have it?" the mark asked Cool Guy. "Was that . . . " she trailed off.

The dog came around and went out in front of Tluldir. It watched her. She became aware that her throat was plainly exposed. So was much of her upper chest—she liked to dress revealingly sometimes whilst on the prowl. It distracted men and women easily; it drew minor attention, but also made dealing with guards incredibly easy. Well, it had done every time but now. If Cool Guy had noticed her cleavage, or the very long open slits of the skirt along the outsides of her thighs, he'd given no indication of it. Maybe it was because they weren't alone yet. Good—once he sent the mark away, Tluldir would be out of this in a heartbeat. Maybe a few minutes of feigned cock-sucking enjoyment. And, while she would never allow the guard to see her in an honest moment, she happened to adore cum—the taste (usually), the texture, the heat, even most men's sated sighs of release. The work to earn that cum she didn't always enjoy, certainly not in such situations as simply getting a watchman to leave her alone, though she was good at it. _Easy as pie_, she thought, grinning, seeing a way out.

"Don't move," Cool Guy told her, firmly, releasing her and smoothly stepping away toward where from the mark's voice had come.

Tluldir started to stand, popping up quickly from her knees. The dog bared teeth. Very clean teeth. A lot of them, some rather sharp-looking. The focus of Tluldir's vision chose to return just then, and set on the dog's teeth. The dog watched her very closely. Counter-moved with her as she moved, preparing to attack.

"Get back down, please," Cool Guy said, but not in a "please" tone of voice, walking toward Tluldir's mark—well, where Tluldir was certain the mark was; it was out of Tluldir's view, behind her. The dog relaxed just a hair at its master's voice. Tluldir tried to weigh her chances. If she stood up all the way, could it jump as high as her throat? She pondered such as she sank back to her knees. The dog was nimble; it looked like it could cleanly jump over her entire, fully-standing body if it wanted to.

"Is that it?" Tluldir's mark said. Tluldir could hear the waify peasant girl smiling at her brave hero. _How very false_, Tluldir thought. _If he plays this as well as I'm sure he will, that man will be with two different willing women today_, she surmised. The mouth of one, and with probably every happily-willing hole of the other. _Filthy men_. _Well, _I'm_ not willing—I'm using sex as a bartering item, coerced. I did break the law; still, I'd allow him into my mouth. He wouldn't have to force me, entirely. I'm going back to women after this._

"You tell me," Cool Guy said. He was smart—didn't milk the situation anywhere near as much as Tluldir expected him to. He sounded polite, but not . . . predatory. Not like he had a willing cunt in view and knew it, even if the cunt didn't, and relished it.

"That's it!" Tluldir's mark said, elated.

"Good," Cool Guy said. "Please—wait. Check yourself. Did she take aught else?" Tluldir heard him turn to look back toward herself. She leaned forward to stick her rear end out, emphasize her curves. She looked back at Cool Guy over her shoulder. He wasn't even looking at her. _Damn, he must've looked quick_, _for me not to catch him doing it,_ she thought. _A fast man. Ha! Good for me._

"Um . . . " the mark said.

Tluldir looked back ahead. The dog had moved closer to her and she hadn't heard it moving. She saw blood on a few of the furry monster's teeth. _Her _blood. She felt herself sweating. It stopped baring its teeth when she held still. But it never looked away from her; extraneous noises didn't distract it. She'd never seen such a disciplined animal. She was now _its _mark, she understood.

"My purse!" Tluldir's mark said. "She took my coinpurse!"

"Describe it," Cool Guy said, gently. Tluldir was impressed at his methodology. Any other guard would've emptied Tluldir's pockets and given the mark the first purse they came across, maybe every one they came across. Cool Guy didn't even give her mark any leading information, or really suggest much. _So, certainly a sex pervert, but apparently not very corrupt otherwise_, Tluldir thought. _As if I can judge. However much of a sex pervert he is, I'm easily twice as much of a one_.

"Small bag," the mark said. "Drawstring. Plain brown leather. Light. I think I had fourteen septims in it. Which is . . . everything I have." Tluldir felt . . . guilt. Shame. She was certain the ring's backstory was impromptu and false, but this about the money rang true.

Tluldir heard Cool Guy doing something then the swish of paper. _Paper? On a _guard?! _I'd bet 500 septims he can't read._ "Will you please write that on here for me?" Cool Guy said. Tluldir heard a clink of glass. _Ink? Not charcoal?_

"I can't . . . " the mark said, self-conscious, deflating.

"You can't write?" Cool Guy said quietly—all business; no condescension or judgment, no sharpness, no insult. If Tluldir had said that, it would've been an insult, and a sharp one at that. Though illiteracy seemed quite common in Skyrim, she'd noticed.

"No . . . " the mark said.

There was silence for two of Tluldir's heartbeats, then Cool Guy said, "That's nothing to be ashamed of. Most Nords don't read or write." Cool Guy sighed. Tluldir was genuinely surprised that he'd noticed the same thing of illiteracy in Skyrim. But then, he was an elf—and not just any elf, but a high elf, a _fancy Altmer_, Tluldir noticed consciously for the first time. Of course he was literate. What was he doing in Skyrim? She wondered how he'd even got a job in the Riften city watch. How any elf would or could have. She wondered how many cocks he had to suck to get the job. Weren't guards in The Rift—in Stormcloak territory—nominally also Stormcloak soldiers? There was _no way_ Stormcloaks would let an elf in. She was the godsdamned Dragonborn, apparently some sort of descendant—spiritually, if not by family lineage—of Talos himself, _and _she was human, but she was a Redguard, not a Nord, and even with her being the godsdamn Dragonborn, she was still pretty sure the Stormcloaks wouldn't allow her in. They only allowed Nords. Which was suicidally short-sighted.

Cool Guy sighed. Tluldir heard him moving . . . downward? She looked back. He'd taken a knee on the boardwalk and was using it as a writing surface. He had around a foot of parchment rolled unfurled in front of him, a short quill in his hand, and an ink vial holding down the parchment's curve at one end. As she looked, he was letting excess ink drip off the quill back into the vial, taking his fucking time, writing things on the parchment. Tluldir gaped at him, struck dumb by the cheek of it. She was a _master _thief, damn him! Damn him and his sweet cum, too!

Cool Guy glanced to her mark, who looked fascinated by all this, and said, "Anything else missing?" as he looked back to Tluldir. They locked eyes. She felt . . . something, just then. She couldn't look away, and didn't want to. His look lingered, but only on her eyes. He checked her body position, probably whether she'd broken out of her bonds, with the briefest of glances and seemed to decide nothing was amiss, then he looked away, between the mark and his parchment notes, Tluldir, his dog, and the area around them generally. A few people had stopped going about their business to watch this farce happen from a good distance away. Free, live entertainment. No, that was good—more eyes, more witnesses; Cool Guy _couldn't_ misbehave, for now. And Tluldir wasn't dressed like a thief; she was dressed like a tavern slut.

"That's all?" Cool Guy asked her mark, checking around occasionally, wary, alert, but seemingly relaxed despite it.

Tluldir looked back to Cool Guy's dog—still focused on her, and her alone. It felt like someone had a bow with an arrow nocked aimed at her, with the bowstring drawn all the way back. At which point it was easier to loose the arrow then unload the bow.

The dog's teeth looked sharp.

"Yes," the mark said, "That's all."

"Uh—I'm being harassed!" Tluldir said loudly to the onlookers. She meant to shout it at full volume but it came out strangled.

"And I'm High King Torygg!" some filthy Nord child said. Everyone around him laughed. Uproariously. Tluldir even heard her mark giggle.

"Shit," Tluldir grumbled. Even the _child_ knew who she was. She was too famous in Riften.

"Be silent, criminal!" Cool Guy said loudly. And _damn _did his voice carry authority. Considering how tough he looked, maybe he deserved some. Tluldir looked around—a few onlookers left, but most stayed, and now backed away several paces at every edge of the periphery.

"Caught one in the act, eh Solitar?" Tluldir heard the voice of the worst person who possibly could have just been passing by: _Mjoll the Cuntess_, Tluldir cursed internally. She must have just known, somehow, that somewhere in Riften a thief was getting arrested. She was walking toward Cool Guy; Tluldir didn't hear his name, or any words beyond Mjoll's voice itself.

"I did at that, my lady," Cool Guy said. His voice changed angle—he looked from Mjoll to Tluldir's mark and said firmly but soothingly, "One more moment, then you can go about your business. Will you stay there, please?"

"Yes," the mark said. "I'm not going anywhere." Her voice had a tinge of "and every inch of my supple, nubile flesh will be waiting right here with me."

"Thank you," Cool Guy said and collected his writing tools—Tluldir looked to watch him, curious—and moved much closer to Tluldir. As he collected his stupid guard tools he said, "Lady Mjoll, will you please be a witness for me?"

"That would be a pleasure and an honor," Mjoll said to Cool Guy, and walked toward him. Tluldir stared daggers at Mjoll, but none of them seemed to land. "My lord," Mjoll added, loving this.

_These two righteous pricks _know _each other? _Tluldir wondered. _This is just the worst day _ever_._ Nothing would change in Riften because of this, obviously—not from this empty spectacle—but Tluldir's next few hours would be very agitating indeed. _I swear, if you two multiply_, Tluldir swore internally at Cool Guy and Mjoll, _I'll make deals with every daedroth there's ever been to destroy your perfect, uptight, arrogant golden spawn before they mature. Thieves Guild for life._

Cool Guy said to Mjoll, "Just a moment ago I personally witnessed that woman—currently bound—whom I recognized as Tluldir, the new Thieves Guildmaster, stealing two items from this young lady—Golgivah Moabathil, a refugee from Morrowind who ironically works for the Thieves Guild bowyer Syndus. She's an otherwise upstanding citizen. So far. Tluldir stole from her one small leather coin purse with reportedly fourteen gold septims in it, and one plain silver ring. I have returned the ring but noted its theft. I've also noted the date, and the lady Moabathil's coin purse." Cool Guy added privately to Mjoll, "The lady cannot write, so she can't endorse my report." He spoke normally again: "You witnessed none of this—I would ask you to sign on behalf of the lady, to act as her eyes, if she'll agree to that and with what I've said to you. Would you do that?"

"Proudly, my friend," Mjoll said.

Tluldir scoffed.

Cool Guy said to the mark without looking at her, "Lady Moabathil, to the best of your knowledge, is everything I just told Lady Mjoll true and accurate?"

"Every word of it," the mark said, "except that I am not a lady." _Dirty bitch_, Tluldir thought. _Talking dirty to him_ _like that._

"Maybe not by highbrow Cyrodiil formal law—though you nonetheless deserve to be treated as such," Cool Guy said.

"Oh, what a _fine_ knight you are!" Tluldir spouted. She couldn't hold her tongue. Though there was something in her heart which loved that he'd publicly show such respect to any woman, much less a damned dark elf, of such low status. _Such _no_ status, _Tluldir corrected herself. _My mark and foolish girl or not, if only decent men felt half as strongly about common kindness, and treating others well, as this sex-pervert guard lickspittle piece of shit, Tamriel would be a better place._ _I'd applaud that high-and-mighty notion if my hands weren't bound, or better used to stab his eyes out and saw his tongue off and shit in his mouth._

"Criminal: One more word and I'll gag you and _carry _you to prison," Cool Guy said.

"I—thank you, sir," the mark said. What Cool Guy had said was remarkable, Tluldir would acknowledge, even if he'd said it only to cheaply buy himself common people's favor and some free pussy tonight. _By all Nine Divines, _Tluldir thought, _Mjoll showed up too, and she's probably a woman—this subservient cock might get _two _cunts tonight! If only _I _were so suave._

"I'm no knight," Cool Guy said, "but you're welcome. I won't say 'lady' in the formal report. I don't in my notes either. Apart from that, is what I said true?"

"As true as truth can be," the mark said. "Yes." Her cunt was probably sopping wet and glowing gold.

"Lady Mjoll, does this document before you say—not in so many words—what I've affirmed aloud?" Cool Guy said.

A few seconds passed by, then Mjoll said, "It does, my lord. I never would've thought to abbreviate the words 'gold pieces.'"

"Shorthand," Cool Guy said. "Lady Moabathil, will you consent to—Mjoll—signing this document, as your witness?"

"I will," the mark said. "I do."

"Mjoll, while I watch the criminal scum before us that I'm sure is wishing us all poisoned—" Tluldir laughed out loud. She couldn't help it. Cool Guy himself even grinned at her response, though Mjoll and her mark seemed scandalized by it. "—will you please make a spot for Lady Moabathil to make her mark on, and below that for yourself to sign as witness?"

"I will," Mjoll said, then set about doing that—Tluldir looked away—if the noises Tluldir heard were any indication.

Tluldir looked back to Cool Guy again. She found it hard to look away from him. He was standing, ready to pounce, watching her as if she were prey. Cool Guy's dog was doing the same thing, on four legs.

Mjoll wrote clumsily. Tluldir found consolation in that.

Tluldir looked back ahead, at nothing. Then at the sky. It was bright out today. Sunny.

"I've never heard of . . . this, before," Mjoll said absentmindedly, scribbling something.

"It's not common among commoners like us," Cool Guy said. Wait, hadn't somebody just said his name? Tluldir couldn't recall it; hadn't been paying attention. She put her attention now to wiggling out of her bonds. They felt like rope; if they were, they were tied damn well. Cool Guy must have been a sailor in a past life. Or this same one—elves could live hundreds of years, Tluldir remembered. Perhaps he had worked as a sailor before he came to Riften to live the life of a complete waste of life (a city watchperson). "Only nobles, jarls, kings, regents. Highborn. For our purposes, it's evidence."

"Lady Moabathil, will you come here, please?" Mjoll said. Tluldir heard the hulking Nord's ridiculous armour, that she wore everywhere at all times, scraping and cranking—Mjoll had motioned the mark over.

"What do I do?" the mark said, walking over to the two self-righteous assholes.

"Mjoll will show you an area on the paper—I want you to make your mark there," Cool Guy said. "That mark is, formally, you giving testimony. Documentation. Like a bill of sale for what happened here just now."

"That's easy!" the mark said. She sounded like she was kneeling.

"Here," Mjoll said, soothingly.

"What form does a mark have?" the mark said, to Cool Guy.

"Whichever you like," he said. "It's _your_ authentication, legally—proof of your presence, identity. Some symbol unique to you, if you have one. A circle or an ouroboros would do, if you can't think of anything."

Tluldir heard scribbling. Then girly giggling. Then more scribbling.

It was agony.

What felt like a very long time—and a few ink-dips—later, the mark said, "I drew your dog."

"Legally legitimate," Cool Guy said. "That's a nice likeness."

"Thank you," the mark said to him.

"And I witnessed it," Mjoll said. "My lord," she added adoringly. Sickening.

"I'm not a lord," Cool Guy said. "And thank you, my lady. If you'd like recompense for your services, let me know."

"The act is its reward," Mjoll said. "The 'lord' was a compliment."

"Thank you for that as well," Cool Guy said. He said toward Tluldir's mark, "I'd show my dog this, but he's on the job, at the moment. Dogs don't really understand drawings. I'll show him later, anyway. His name's Nomad."

"That's nice," the mark said.

Tluldir looked around; most of the crowd had dispersed. So she _wasn't_ the only one who felt like this might be the very first summary execution by boredom.

"Are you busy right now, Mjoll?" Cool Guy said—quietly, only to her. Not using a stage voice anymore.

"No," Mjoll said. _Of course_ she wasn't. She never did anything, apart from beat up members of Tluldir's guild and criticize people who actually did things.

"I'm going to repossess Lady Moabathil's coin purse and return it to her so she can eat tonight," Cool Guy said. "Will you back me up, please? Keep watch around and on my arrest subject."

"I'm honored to do so, my lord," Mjoll said. Tluldir heard—then watched, alarmed—Mjoll getting her two-handed battleaxe out. Elven. Fancy, for Skyrim and Riften.

"You won't need that," Cool Guy said, standing and walking around Tluldir, keeping several feet between them. Mjoll kept her weapon out and ready. Cool Guy looked into Tluldir's eyes and addressed her; she tried staring throwing axes at him, for variety, but they had no effect. "Criminal," he said, "I'm going to return Lady Moabathil's purse to her. Everything else on your person is now evidence. Whatever of it belongs to you is yours—that won't change. If I find you have any stolen goods, consider them returned. Forfeit. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Tluldir said. She tried to make it sound like "suck my dick," but it had no effect.

"I saw where you pocketed it initially, but you may have moved it," Cool Guy said, so Mjoll could also hear. "Where is it now?"

Tluldir chewed on her lip. "Same place." Contempt.

Tluldir had a sling bag across her back. She wished she'd stashed the mark's coin purse in her snatch, or maybe under a titty, but she hadn't, and she couldn't move it now. This guard had the potential to be cruel. Definitely. Now she only wanted this to be over as quickly as possible.

She gave up.

"Are there any sharp things, or traps or anything else that might harm me, or anyone else nearby?" Cool Guy asked her.

"There's a sheathed dagger in the bag," Tluldir said, "Iron. I don't know if it's still sheathed; it was when I put it in there."

"Thank you," Cool Guy said. "Is there anything else? Understand, if a trap goes off and harms me or anyone else, I will consider it assault."

"Just the dagger," Tluldir said. "And a gold diamond ring."

"Is everything in this bag stolen?" Cool Guy said without judgment—believing what she said, she noticed. He left the bag on her, but moved and opened it. No traps. Tluldir would have to look into how one could trap items, like maybe by casting glyph spells on them.

"No," Tluldir said. She was sad to feel and hear that all fight had left her. "The keyring's mine. A few thousand septims are mine. Some potions."

"I see Lady Moabathil's purse," Cool Guy said. "I'll return that to her, and take naught else. At the jail, I'll inventory everything you have. How compliant you are between here and there will affect whether I choose to confiscate allof it, or _any _of it. Do you understand?"

_He's saying he might _not _legally just steal all my things_, Tluldir had to make herself think, consciously, to make it register. _Odd. A city watchman with scruples and ethics—the very worst kind. He might be opening the door for sex-payment/punishment, though_. _He wants to take me to jail. Maybe if I really make the blowjob good he'll let me go. I can change his mind. I _will _change his mind. _Tluldir licked her lips. Languorously.

"I understand," Tluldir replied with as much sex in her voice as she could muster. Which, to be fair, was little in this situation, with other witnesses.

Cool Guy rolled his eyes and looked away from her. He seemed annoyed. Like, inconvenienced. "Mjoll, you heard that, right?"

"This criminal offers to pay her fine with . . . the sex," Mjoll said.

"I'll take the public route to jail, then," Cool Guy said. "Mjoll, may I trouble you to accompany me on that short trip?"

"It would be no trouble," Mjoll said. "I'll see this through, friend."

"Don't feel like you have to," Cool Guy said. He looked to Tluldir's mark. "My lady, I cannot thank you enough for your patience with this matter. I apologize for taking so much of your time already—" He sounded bizarrely sincere and honest, considering he was only being nice to get his cock wet.

"It's nothing," the mark said. "I got off work early today. I was only going to go read."

"Reading and relaxing—you should be. Not in the company of someone who robbed you," Cool Guy said. He held up the mark's coin purse. "Is this yours?"

"I think so," she said, looking at a small thing from a distance.

"I'll show you," Cool Guy told her.

"Are you gonna have me keep kneeling here?" Tluldir blurted out. She felt neglected.

"You may sit, if you like," Cool Guy said, like that was the best she'd get. "That dagger in your bag is still sheathed. Which is good. You could've hurt yourself, running."

"I think I'll run away again, now," Tluldir said, sitting.

Cool Guy halted and turned to her—she watched him—and said, "Try." He glanced at his dog, still silent, still freakishly vigilant. The dog would have her in a second no matter which way she fled, including up. After he spoke, Cool Guy simply watched her. Waited.

The mark wanted to laugh at what Cool Guy said but was too afraid; Mjoll laughed openly, though. That hurt Tluldir. She'd remember it. She glared at Mjoll to tell her so. Then she looked back to Cool Guy and said, "Fuck you."

"Your pride leaves you vulnerable," he said—a comment, an aside, not a judgment or an insult. _Odd_, Tluldir thought. She refused to hear what he meant. "No need to curse," he added. "Another such foul thing said and I'll gag you. Last warning."

Tluldir loudly blew a raspberry.

Cool Guy walked to the mark. Tluldir watched him. He showed the dark elf girl her own coinpurse up close. "Is this yours?" he said.

"Yes," she said, reaching for it.

"Do you want me to count it? For my notes," he said, handing it to her. "The jarl's been instituting certain minimal sentences and fines based on the degree of theft; the amount may matter."

"I just want my money back," the mark said, sounding desperate. She was telling the truth in that moment, Tluldir was certain.

"Understood," Cool Guy said. "Thank you for your patience. I should rephrase: I'm at work right now," he said. "This is my job. I thank you for making all this easier for me. I appreciate that."

Tluldir scoffed.

"What was that?" Mjoll said to Tluldir like Tluldir was about to get a beating.

"I believe she was clearing her nose," Cool Guy said, dismissively. Tluldir's head whipped around to see what sort of expression was on his face—she could not figure out the guy's angle, for the life of her. He was ignoring her, but not pointedly. Simply engrossed in his task, doing it well, perhaps. But he also wasn't worried about what Tluldir might do _at all_, though he knew who she was, he knew she had power. It was . . . nobody treated her like that. It was unique.

"You are free to go," Cool Guy said to Tluldir's mark. "Again, thank—"

The mark lunged at him, hugging him. He allowed it.

Cool Guy's dog glanced at the motion.

Tluldir saw an opening and bolted upright to run—

Cool Guy's dog tackled her so quickly, so strongly, she didn't know what happened until later. All she knew was she was about to start running, then the world rotated then she was looking up at the sky and seeing stars.

"Warned you," Cool Guy said, then presumably looked back to the mark. Tluldir didn't move; with Cool Guy's dog pinning her down, she couldn't. He said, "Thank you again for your patience."

"You're welcome," the mark said, releasing him.

"Don't take my keys," he said . . . _to the mark_.

Tluldir looked that way in time to see him stopping the mark's hand's progress, before she could conceal his keyring out of plain sight. The best perspective Tluldir could get was upside-down, but it was enough.

"_Fuck!_" cursed the mark. "Please don't arrest me!" she begged. She knew she was caught. Emotionally, her fall seemed even harder than Tluldir's.

"Empty your pockets," Cool Guy ordered her.

"Do I have to, daddy?" the mark said. At once, Tluldir thought much more highly of her.

"That depends: Do you want to sleep in jail tonight?" Cool Guy said. The "daddy" bit hadn't affected him in the least. Or, perhaps he hadn't heard it.

"No," the mark said, defeated. She didn't empty her pockets.

"Mjoll," Cool Guy said. Then to the mark: "Don't move."

"Aye," Mjoll said. She stowed her enormous battleaxe, strode to Tluldir's mark, and searched her. Thoroughly. Tluldir had to acknowledge: Mjoll had been around professional thieves long enough to know to check what the common population would've regarded as no-no places.

"Can we be honest, for a moment?" Cool Guy said to Tluldir's mark.

"We already are," the mark said, as Mjoll removed a sizable-yet-hidden dagger from between the mark's legs. "Oh, Vivec's nuts!" she cursed.

"Was this real, at first?" Cool Guy said. "Ever? I know you didn't plan to get pick-pocketed by Tluldir. But—was that why you stayed the whole time?" He gestured at his keyring. "That's not even currency."

"It was real," the mark said. "Up 'til I hugged you. I stayed to get my money back. Not that you'll believe me, now. I . . . knew I'd get an opportunity like that. When I hugged you I felt keys, saw an opportunity to gain entry to the whole city, and took advantage."

"You got all your things back," Cool Guy said. "Plus seeing your guildmaster humiliated." He looked to Tluldir and said, "I apologize for that, Lady Tluldir. You made it difficult."

"I accept your apology," Tluldir found herself saying honestly. Despite herself. _Wow, this afternoon's been such a wild ride, emotionally and physically_, she thought. She'd finally met someone with a distrust of people that went as deep as her own. And he was a fucking _city watchman_. Now that she thought on it, now Tluldir actually _wanted _to spend a night in bed with the man. With the elf. Just to see what he'd do with her. He _was _beautiful. And tall. And in excellent shape. He might even last beyond two minutes against her. Maybe as long as five. She wanted to taste his cum, anyway.

"Thank you," Cool Guy said to her. "So—Golgivah," he said, looking back to the mark. "Why risk it? You were _out_. I was about to offer to pay for your voyage to a place better than Skyrim. For a better life. Was it _for _the risk?"

"No, though that made it more fun," the mark said. No—she was a real person now. Golgivah. Tluldir would remember her, now. "I thought I'd get away with it. I had you wrapped around my finger."

"No," Cool Guy said. "Partway, though, yes, and I'm ashamed that you had me that much—but for your professional edification I note not all the way; I _almost_ stopped you when you went to embrace me. I _knew _then, but I suspected before. Even if I didn't feel you take anything, I was going to search you, then. Or ask Lady Mjoll to. Out of respect: You've lost."

"You mentioned grace earlier—" Golgivah said.

"Did I?" Cool Guy said, and at the same time Mjoll ripped his huge keyring out of Golgivah's hand. It looked painful. Golgivah grimaced but made no sound. After Mjoll handed his keys back to him he said to Golgivah, "Is there nothing else, my lady?"

"No," Golgivah said. Then she looked to Mjoll and said, "Bitch," and spat at her. In that moment, Tluldir went from disdaining the girl to just about considering her a friend. Mjoll had the opposite reaction: At once she head-butted Golgivah, who instantly dropped to the ground—the boardwalk. The bratty little thief hadn't expected that at all. Tluldir laughed.

"She's clean," Mjoll said to Cool Guy, her search done. If Tluldir were in Mjoll's boots, as they said, she wasn't sure if she would've searched the dark elf any better than the big dumb Nord. Mjoll went on, "Unless you want me to check her . . . insides."

"If you believe it necessary," Cool Guy said. Tluldir laughed again—Mjoll was suggesting cutting Golgivah's belly open, she realized. And Cool Guy joked about it. "I'm not missing anything valuable," he said. "And if she wants _anything _that badly she can keep it."

Mjoll laughed. "Let me check my things."

"As you wish," Cool Guy said. "Golgivah, can you hear me?"

"_Fuck_," Golgivah said dully, groaning, sitting up. "Yeah . . . "

"That head-butt wasn't nice, Mjoll," Cool Guy said.

"But it was fair," Mjoll said.

"I suppose turnabout is fair play. In that she didn't evade it," Cool Guy said. "Golgivah, I hope you aspire to more than thievery, but . . . I'm trying to force my opinion on you, in so saying. I'll take you at your word and, _once__,_ let you off with nothing but unkind words and that head-butt. I can't let your presumption cost you nothing; consider yourself out of my good side. Indefinitely. If I catch you doing anything illegal, you'll go to jail. If you retrieve your purse—you dropped it—there you go—and leave right now, I will let you."

"No arrest?" Golgivah said. "No fine?"

"You know who I am, right?" Cool Guy said.

"I do," Golgivah said. She gestured at Tluldir: "I thought everyone did, but I guess not." Golgivah chuckled at the Thieves Guildmaster.

"There's no accounting for taste," Cool Guy said. Golgivah and Mjoll both laughed.

"I'm right here!" Tluldir said. Everyone ignored her.

"Mjoll?" Cool Guy said.

"I'm good," Mjoll said. "Nothing missing."

"If, um . . . I would've fucked you," Golgivah said. Tluldir felt vaguely scandalized. Maybe that the girl offered as much, more or less, before she did.

"Leave," Cool Guy told her. Not gently.

She left.

Cool Guy put his keyring away, then folded up and put away his excessive report.

"Laxō," Cool Guy said to his dog, which dismounted Tluldir at once. "My lady," he said to her, "you're still under arrest. You'll spend a night in jail for toying with the wrong guard. The _one _wrong guard. Maven will decide to release you first thing tomorrow, if not before then. Obviously. I don't need to say this, but for clarity: You're free to work from jail, of course. I know it, you know it. What I'm telling you is: There are limits. You will not the leave the cell until tomorrow. I would appreciate if you didn't fight me until you're locked up."

"I'll decide moment-to-moment," Tluldir said.

"Fine," Cool Guy said, and did some kind of crazy magic shit she'd never heard of nor imagined which levitated her entire body maybe four feet above the boardwalk. Solidly. Then he tied her ankles together with plain rope. "I apologize for my rudeness. I've simply run out of patience: This is happening. Actions have consequences. I say that because you've forgotten."

"And you think you'll just _get away with_ arresting the Guildmaster?" Tluldir said.

"I already have," Cool Guy said. "You've wasted a lot of time inconveniencing me, professionally. You're a guild master now; you need to consider how your actions, such as this time-sink, affect those under you."

"I'll . . . " Tluldir said. "Yeah. Yeah."

"Mjoll—my lady—will you please accompany me to the jail?" Cool Guy said.

"I will," Mjoll said. "If you know she'll break out by tomorrow, why don't you just kill her?" Mjoll and Cool Guy began walking. Apparently unbidden, Tluldir's levitation . . . bed? area?, hovered along with them. Cool Guy must've been controlling it somehow. Some high elf shit.

"I don't know how to express this in a way that will make sense to you," Cool Guy said. "Certainly none that will satisfy you. Suffice to say: The corruption in this city goes deeper than the Thieves Guild. And not 'break out,' she'll be released, formally. It may take a day or so. Depending on how angry with her Maven is."

"You sound . . . " Mjoll said, struggling for words. "We're doing something good, now, yes?"

"Yes," Cool Guy said. "Inconsequential but good. 'Good' doesn't mean 'nice.'"

"Can we get through some formalities?" Tluldir said. "Guard to thief?"

"Which formalities do you mean?" Cool Guy said. He sounded neutral again. Nearly pleasant, nearly friendly. Not like a presumed-authority huge asshole. Odd.

"Can I bribe you?" Tluldir said.

"No," Cool Guy said.

"Intimidate?"

"No chance."

"You know, I'm a thane of Jarl Laila Law-Giver's—"

"I do know," Cool Guy said. "I don't care."

"I'll suck your cock," Tluldir said.

"_By the!—_" Mjoll started to yell, incredulous. Cool Guy put a hand on her shoulder like "don't bother," and she cut herself off. Those two do-gooder cunts knew each other.

"In general?" Cool Guy said. "For the fun of it?"

"_If_ you'll release me," Tluldir said. "Burn your notes, forget any of this happened. Look the other way."

"No," he said.

"I'll make it good," she said.

"Still no," he said. He didn't even consider it. "Though I'm flattered you'd consider that. Thank you for the compliment."

"You're welcome," she said. "I mean—no! I'm _really _goodat sucking cock. Men say I'm wonderful."

"I'm sure they do," he said.

"Mer too," she said.

"Naturally," he said.

"You don't believe me?" she said.

"Irrelevant," he said. "I'm at work now. I don't care."

"I'd draw it out, too," she said.

"Sweet Talos!" Mjoll said.

Cool Guy ignored the both of them.

"—Not simply make you come as fast as I can and call it good," Tluldir said.

"_For the mercy of!—_" Mjoll began, loudly.

"No," Cool Guy said, to Tluldur. Somehow his calm, even tone broke through Mjoll's bluster, and had her stop speaking.

"What if I make it take ten minutes?" Tluldir said.

"No."

"Do you know how long ten minutes is?" Tluldir said.

"Yes," Cool Guy said. "Still no."

"Fifteen minutes."

"No."

"Twenty?" Tluldir said. If he really knew how long twenty minutes could be, she hoped he'd go for her next offer: an hour.

"You're embarrassing yourself."

Tluldir didn't feel like sucking anyone off anymore.

Mjoll was merely watching this happen by then, astonished beyond speech.

Cool Guy's dog watched it all too, Tluldir noticed, craning her head to see it. It was walking about a pace behind Cool Guy, to his left. Mjoll was behind him, closer to him than the dog. Tluldir and her levitation-sled—?—were on Cool Guy's right, a few feet behind him. He looked back at her occasionally. She tried rolling away from him, as if maybe the sled, or whatever it was, of magicka had certain boundaries—but not so, apparently, or if it did it had walls or vertical barriers, because something unyielding stopped her at once. The invisible sled never wavered, or sunk, or yielded to anything she did. Cool Guy looked back at her less than a second later. Maybe he felt it. Tluldir yielded to the sled, and him. She'd forgot about his dog. The mongrel was so quiet. Odd.

Her ankle still hurt, the right one. She couldn't move enough to see it.

"I'll let you come all over my face," Tluldir said.

"Though that's a better offer—" Cool Guy began.

"Don't _encourage_ her, Sol!" Mjoll said, scandalized. His name was pronounced like "soul." It didn't ring any bells in Tluldir's mind. She giggled; she wondered if Mjoll had ever had sex.

"I'm not," Cool Guy said. "No, Lady Tluldir."

"Your name's Soul?" she said, briefly having forgotten that she could speak.

"I don't remember my real name anymore—the one my parents gave me," Cool Guy said. "Occasionally I choose another. Mayhap I'll guess the correct one someday. For now, it's Solitar. I picked it—a traditional Altmer name—before I got to Riften, so it wasn't on-the-nose back then."

"'Solitar,'" Tluldir said, tasting it. "Sounds nice. I've been calling you 'Cool Guy' this whole time in my inner monologue."

Solitar shrugged like, "Who cares?" Certainly not him.

"Other guards and sundry people have given me a few honorary Nord titles and nicknames," Solitar said.

"Fuck me, you're Solitar Ice-Veins!" Tluldir said. She remembered all at once. Suddenly this whole encounter made sense. "So we finally meet."

"No thank you," Solitar said. "We've met before. From your perspective, I'm sorry it was like this. I daresay you'll remember this."

"Yeah, me too," Tluldir said. "People call you 'Sol?'"

"That diminutive's common," he said. "People call me a lot of things."

"You can call me 'Lull,'" Tluldir said. "Most people do anyway. Do you know how my name's spelled? The T is silent."

"Yes, I know how to spell your name, as well as how it's pronounced," Solitar said. "I take that as a compliment. Thank you for the privilege, Lady Tluldir."

"Just 'Lull,'" Tluldir said.

"You are not just," Mjoll scolded.

Lull blew a raspberry.

"Fine, only 'Lull,'" Solitar said. "I don't take it personally in the least, but professionally I'm upset you don't remember that we've met before, Lull. Twice that I recall."

"I like you," Lull said, to Solitar, honest but also still hoping for the (mutual) escape of a blowjob. "I'd remember you."

"I like you too," Sol said. "And, false. We met once in a typical guard-shit work situation. And once at a party of Maven's. I think it was for Jester's Day."

"When was that?" Lull said.

Sol looked at her like he was surprised she didn't remember the holiday. "Twenty-eighth of Rain's Hand. I don't remember the theme. We talked about the Thieves Guild—I wasn't in uniform—and then about music and sanitation, for around two hours."

"I don't remember any of that," Lull said. "Or Jester's Day."

"I really thought you did for a while, back there," Sol said. "But, eh. Doesn't matter. Here we are."

"True," Lull said.

"I'll understand if you try to kill me at some point in the future. Or have me killed. Know: I'd appreciate if you didn't. So would Maven. And the jarl."

"Why would Maven Black-Briar want _you_ alive?" Mjoll said.

"Mayhap you still forget who I am," Sol said. "Ask _her _that."

Mjoll went silent, then said without looking at anyone, "I remember why we broke up now."

"Eww!" Lull said. "You two were a thing?"

"Were," Sol said.

"You keep getting more interesting to me, Solitar," Lull said.

"Sorry," Sol said.

Lull laughed. So did Mjoll.


	2. Tiid

**II: Tiid**

At Riften Jail, Solitar opened the front door and then moved aside so Tluldir's . . . air-skiff of invisibility could float by.

"Sweet Talos, the Guildmaster!" the uniformed Riften city watchperson, the jail's front door guard, said when he recognized Tluldir.

"I've got it from here, my lady," Solitar said to Mjoll.

Mjoll nodded and shook hands—well, muscled forearms—with Solitar. Then she gave a wilting stinkeye-glance to the door guard and left. She closed the door back outside to the courtyard of Mistveil Keep behind her.

"I'm serious about sucking your cock," Tluldir reminded Solitar.

"_Gods!_" the door guard said. If only he'd arrested her, Tluldir thought wistfully. She wouldn't have had to offer the same oral sex treatment to that worm twice.

"I know," Sol said. Lull's invisible air-skiff continued forward.

"I'll swallow _every drop_," Lull promised. She heard the door guard laughing loudly in uncomfortable arousal. He shrank away as Sol and Lull-on-invisible-skiff sailed forward.

"I don't believe you," he said like he didn't give a damn whether she believed him or didn't, probably knowing the truth—that she would really do that—and not caring. He walked alongside her air-skiff—it might as well have been a coffin—without looking at her. Not interested; he sounded distracted. "But I appreciate the offer. I wish you understood—I'm on duty. At work. I can't compromise."

"I don't understand," Lull said, sounding despondent, feeling bizarrely helpless. She'd forgot what that felt like. The only other time in recent memory she'd felt that way had been the misfortune of her entering Skyrim.

"Right," Sol said.

"I remember the first time I heard of you," Lull said. "Incorruptible from the start. Not even to maintain status quo. Years ago. People say when you got here, the guards—even then—tried to fleece you for some gold, and that in response you beat one of them nearly to death and called the other a 'motherfucker.' No one's trifled with you since."

"No one but Maul and Dirge," Sol said, laughing. "Ask them about me sometime."

"I wish I remembered this a few hours ago," Lull said. "Why would Maul and Dirge trifle with you? Did they best you?"

"_Gods_ no," Sol said, laughing. He paused. "I was angry back then."

"At them?" Lull said.

"No," Sol said. "_Angry,_ in general. At everything."

"I'd like to see how that anger translates into the bedroom," Lull said.

Sol shook his head. "It's in the past," he said. "I'd appreciate if you stopped trying to entice me like that." He stopped walking. Her invisible skiff stopped at the same time he did. "Lull—if I weren't on duty—were this _any_ other time—it would not be like this. At all. You chose the worst possible time to pickpocket one of your employees. Ironically. My duty and my oath to Riften, and the jarl, and my other one to Maven personally, compelled me to act. I'm the _only _watchperson who would've done that. If you'd stop trying to escape the consequences, your time here—however brief—would go by much more quickly."

Sol sounded as sad as Lull felt. Odd. She felt sad in this particular moment, too, but in her life in general lately, moreover. She saw too much of herself in Sol.

"Jurgar," Sol called.

"Yes, Lieutenant?" said some other watchman Lull couldn't see. A Nord. The man sounded—afraid?—of Sol. Or perhaps reverent.

"Bring the trunk, please," Sol said.

"Which trunk?" Jurgar said. Lull still couldn't see him.

"The big one."

Sol brought over a watchman and opened the first cell to the left. It was unlocked, and no one else was in it. Lull was _sure_ she'd been in this place before—early in her time in Riften locked up, or more recently dealing with Sibbi Black-Briar and various other prisoners—but in all honesty Lull had no memory whatsoever of the place itself. She recognized none of it. The floor-plan confused her. It didn't smell like a jail, or a prison; it smelled of the hearth and candles, as a cozy inn should smell. The cells were all incredibly spacious, luxuriant even; nicer than any room in The Bee and Barb, and you had to _pay_ for those, 10 septims a day.

Sol said, "The moment you're released, you'll have your every thing back, from your weapons to every piece of gold you own and each and every lockpick on your person. From now until then, I can't take for granted that you own anything with you, I can't allow you escape implements, and I can't leave you with weapons because it's my responsibility to prevent you from harming yourself or others. I asked Kirsta over for her assistance because we have to search you—no concealed weapons. She's going to search you regardless of whether you agree to it."

Kirsta was a lithe Nord watchwoman with a steel greatsword strapped to her back. Like every watchperson other than Sol, of course, she wore a closed helm which concealed her face. She hadn't spoken, so Lull didn't know she was a Nord, but she was a city watchperson in Stormcloak-held Riften, so she was a Nord. How Sol was a watchman here was still a mystery to her.

"I understand," Lull said. She meant to sound measured and even, unconcerned, but sounded almost as resigned as she felt. "I'd rather _you_ searched me," she said to Sol, and not even in a sexy way. Kirsta had this way about her—Lull was sure Kirsta wanted to hurt her.

"You'd consent to that?" Sol said.

"I consent," Lull said. "I . . . trust you." Even in her own mind, her voice sounded much more defeated now than she'd ever admit.

Sol locked eyes with her for a moment.

He subtly shrugged, said, "I'll do it," and looked to Kirsta. "I would still like you to witness—don't allow me to do anything inappropriate."

Kirsta laughed. "Whatever you say, sir."

Sol gave Lull this look like, "You work with what you have." Then he said, "As you wish, I'll search you. We'll put up a privacy wall, for you. Kirsta will observe as I search."

"I still can't move," Lull said.

"I know," Sol said. "I can't trust you. If you fight, I'll force you to stay here. With restraints if need be. I'd rather you weren't in pain in addition to incarcerated."

"You shouldn't make that decision for me," Lull said.

"Too bad," Sol said, looking and sounding sad. He wasn't taunting. "You said you trust me. If you do, take solace in that. That I won't abuse your trust, or what little power a watchperson has in this city. I subdue you to spare you pain I may have to inflict to get you to yield. I would prefer not to do either. Beating you into submission physically seems less evil to me, somehow, than doing so emotionally, but I would do only what I'm allowed to legally, and the physical route may result in permanent damage to you." He looked to Kirsta. "Let's step out. Kirsta, will you get the folding wall, please?"

"Of course," Kirsta said. She sounded tough, now that Lull paid attention to her voice. She definitely wanted to physically assault Lull into submission.

Sol untied Lull, but she didn't even want to move by then. Sol and Kirsta left her alone in her cell and closed its door. Sol waited just outside the bars, watching Lull, as Kirsta left her field of view.

Two long minutes later Kirsta returned with an ornate-looking wood folding wall. Its design looked foreign, but Lull didn't know where it might've come from.

Sol and Kirsta came back in—Lull hadn't moved the entire time. Just closed her eyes. The two watchpeople came in, set up the wall so only they could see her, and took absolutely all her things—armour, weapons, massive keyring, riches, clothing, modesty, pride—but somehow not her dignity. Sol was a gentleman. Maybe he really was a knight in Cyrodiil, or would be if he lived there. Not that Cyrodiils thought of high elves fondly, at this moment in history. He had Lull stand, then dispelled her invisible sled. Or, it was gone when she next went through that area, anyway. Lull expected him to stare at her fun parts, or at her general nakedness—she'd been in jail many times before—to humiliate her, or for his own sick desires, or for him to grope her ass or tits, sniff her cunt, or outright rape her, but he did no such thing. He searched her like she would've searched herself—businesslike, deliberate, thorough, no awkwardness or uncertainty or embarrassment or enjoyment. Kirsta looked at Lull exactly like she feared Sol would. Lull was happy, relieved, among her many other feels at the moment, that she'd gone with her gut instinct, rolled those dice, and had Sol search her instead of the Nord woman. Lull respected and liked him much more for the respect and courtesy he showed her. He would've been able to get away with doing absolutely anything to her then, and wasn't so much as impolite to her when he had all the power and she none. She'd been arrested by more guards in other holds in Skyrim, and in other provinces, far more times than she cared to count, and this was the first time any of them had treated her with any decency. Odd. More than that, he treated her like a living thing—not a somehow evil, tarnished object to be thrown around—and with respect.

They gave her roughspun clothing—no smallclothes, only trousers and a long-sleeved shirt and fur shoes. Sol brought her four pairs to try on and none fit well.

Lull's time in jail went by quickly. Sol was kind throughout, though no one else was—watchpeople guarding her or fellow prisoners.

Sol brought her books at her request, even naughty ones like "The Lusty Argonian Maid" and "The Lusty Altmeri Late-Night Caller" and "Big Tits Brunette Loves Hard Cock" and Lull got a lot of reading done.

Lull masturbated at least once a day while she was in Riften Jail, usually more than once. If she were free she would've expected to fuck often, usually every few days, at least. She used the naughty books to help her accomplish orgasm and physical satisfaction in jail. She kept trying to get Sol to come in and "help her" with that, but he never would. Several other prisoners and guards offered to help but she declined them. Strangely, as corrupt as everything in Riften was, none of the guards tried to force themselves on her—it was all degrees of rudeness with them, from low to high, but only ever talk.

Sol told Lull freely, and she later verified independently: Both Maven Black-Briar and Jarl Laila were furious with Lull, for different reasons, though they were both furious that she'd got caught in general, and in particular that she'd been stupid enough to get caught by Solitar Ice-Veins. The man had "a sixth sense for illegality," people told her Maven had said, and was unbreakably loyal to her. Both powerful women were shocked Lull hadn't immediately recognized him.

Sol had been certain Lull would be out in less than one full day. She was in jail for three. Lull couldn't sense time passing underground—the guards always kept the jail lit evenly by fire. Almost nothing changed. If she'd cared she would've kept track, herself, of all the guards' shift changes, or how many times Sol came there to check on her and most other prisoners, but for the first day or so she didn't care, and by what Sol told her was the third day she thought . . . why bother. He apologized for the "long" captivity—he hadn't meant for her to be in longer than a day, but he wasn't going to release her until either the de facto jarl of The Rift, or the de jure jarl, ordered it. After a full day, he decided he wouldn't release her until one of them suggested it. Then two more days went by; on the third day of her incarceration, he reminded Maven and Laila that it was still ongoing. Several eyewitnesses and other people, and Sol himself, told her that the jarl had been indifferent about it, but that Maven had told him she (Lull) had probably learned her lesson (to know what the city's one clean guard looked like) by now, and so . . . whatever, sure, release Lull. Sol offered to buy her dinner that day, when he released her—he was about to be off-duty for the rest of the day—but she was so dispirited and angry at everyone she foolishly refused. Three different people—one she trusted somewhat—had informed Lull of the scene when Sol reminded Jarl Laila and Maven of her captivity, and how little either had really cared, before Sol had got back and told her himself (and then only at her insistence). Lull still couldn't understand the man.

Sol explained to her—after numerous informants, from fellow Riften watchpeople to friends of hers in full Thieves Guild regalia—he'd put out word that anyone who had legitimate claim to things in Lull's possession that she'd stolen from them were welcome to formally reclaim their things in the jail, or in Mistveil Keep's throne room, as they pleased. Lull's fellow Guild frenemy Sapphire had tried to claim Lull's elven shortsword, but then been unable to describe its engravings or hilt shape or general appearance; no one had made false claims after that, Lull knew for a fact, because at least five people informed her of it, and then Sol confirmed it. He had a fondness for dry facts. Or an ability to remember them, anyway. He was honest. The next claimant was Madesi, who asked for the return of a full shipment of Marks of Dibella he'd crafted for Haelga which Lull had stolen. Madesi had asked for the marks openly at court with approximately half the city in attendance—several minutes of laughter later, Sol had replied to Madesi's request, saying he'd be happy to return that shipment, but as it wasn't on Tluldir's person at the time of her arrest, he was unable to do so. Madesi had also asked for the return of a silver emerald necklace he alleged Lull had stolen from under his nose; Sol had said that he couldn't say whether Lull had such a thing at the time of her arrest, but that if Madesi would ask for it, and describe it in detail, in writing, he would check. Madesi did that. Sol apparently returned the necklace to Madesi personally in Mistveil Keep's throne room-and-great hall. Lull knew damn well she had the necklace, because she'd stolen it not ten minutes before Sol had caught her stealing from that lying dark elf. The necklace wasn't worth all that much—it wasn't made of gold, wasn't inlaid with diamonds—but Lull had still been looking forward to getting it fenced. She'd vainly hoped to be released before Madesi made his written request, but that hadn't happened, so she was out a few hundred septims. She'd had thousands of septims' worth of stolen goods on her at the instance of her arrest, though.

Maven had asked for the return of a glass dagger Lull had stolen from her a few days before her arrest, which Lull still had on her person during the arrest. As he spoke with Lull about it, Sol inferred that Lull had indeed stolen it, but Maven refused to make the request in writing . . . but it was still _Maven_ who'd made the verbal request, Sol had explained, so he was going to return it anyway, and he'd either buy or smith another one for Lull if she felt at all cheated or unhappy or insulted or wronged. Lull took him up on that. A brand-new glass dagger awaited Lull when Sol gave her possessions back to her and released her. She was astonished he'd actually done it. She could tell it wasn't the same glass dagger, because Maven's was a custom job and had a bunch of gaudy gold and engravings about the handle and in the blade, and the one Sol gave her didn't, and was also pristine. Maven's had dust on it.

Sol walked Lull—fully re-equipped, re-armed, re-dressed and very well rested—out of the jail and Mistveil Keep upon her release.

"I hope to see you again," Lull told him, trying to embrace him. She didn't even intended to steal anything from him.

But he was on-duty, in uniform, so he wouldn't allow her that close. He stopped her with an arm to her shoulder. Every time he rebuffed her, emotionally or sexually, she wanted him all the more.

"You will," he said. He conceded to a handshake. He was warm. No gloves. Lull felt her gutty-wuts get squishy at his touch. She felt like a virgin again, with him. Thrilling.

"When you're off-duty, I meant," Lull said.

"That too," he said. They smiled together. "If you remember me."

"I will this time," she said, smiling again. He smiled back.

She did see him again.


	3. Wineplace

**III: Winecocks**

_Loredas, 27 Midyear, Year 202 of the Fourth Era_

Riften's newest inn was several years old. Anyone you cared to ask would agree the drinks were good, though not as good as those of The Bee and Barb—nothing original—but only the fancy ate or drank at the Bee and Barb. Maven Black-Briar herself had dinner there most nights. Tluldir was fancy now, for all the things she'd stolen, but she couldn't bear the looks the place's owners would give her anymore, so she drank and looked for people to fuck either at the new place or at the Ragged Flagon. The only people ever at the Flagon were Thieves Guilders she already knew and liked, or their support staff, or Dirge—for sexual partners, Lull wanted new flavors most nights, and certainly on this night. One or a few men or women she'd never been with. Ideally someone she'd never so much as seen before, someone new. Plus the Flagon's drink was never good and of late she kept getting really angry at being charged for anything despite basically owning the place and having single-handedly revived it, and the Guild, and probably the city too, and she also didn't want to get thrown out, again, for beating the piss out of Vekel the Man, again. Somehow thinking the word "again" repeatedly helped Lull let go of the anger.

So Lull went to the new place tonight: The Lonely Stag, much better known as "Winecocks" or "The Winecock" for its potent alcohol's common effect on men who drank to get liquid courage enough to proposition one of the place's whores, and then failed to perform with them, physically, almost always specifically being unable to get hard. Apparently winecock was a very common occurrence there, of a night. Lull had only encountered it a few times—once the man was simply too drunk to fuck, and every other time they couldn't get their cocks up—and never with one of the place's man-whores—only guests like herself—at which point she'd usually dump whatever man had failed her, and hire one, if she was still in the mood for cock; or hire a woman, if she wasn't. There always seemed to be as many women as men whoring their bodies out in Winecocks. The place catered to common people—it was by far the city's most popular inn, for its popularity, itself, now, and its drink prices and room rental prices and likely also their brothel side-business. Also that it wasn't in the Ratway, which the Ragged Flagon was, of course. Winecocks was most busy on any given Fredas—the end of the work-week—of course, and on a Loredas night it was only slightly less rowdy—by maybe one order of magnitude rather than several and dead inside or actually empty like the Bee and Barb was sometimes. An empty bar depressed Tluldir. The place's crowds suited Lull just fine tonight. She'd been asked a few times to join in with couples or groups to fuck on such nights—that sounded very attractive tonight. That or some love-play. She'd been thinking about that damnably tall and handsome watch-elf again, Solitar, although she was done with trying to find him anymore. She'd looked everywhere in Riften and still not found him. Other Guild thieves saw him plenty, but were too afraid to approach or speak with him. She needed to see the damn fantasy she kept having play out in a more tactile manner, and end with her feeling satisfied, preferably also with the taste of cum in her mouth, instead of helpless and alone except for her very worst enemy in Riften—_that_ guard, the city's one clean guard, Solitar Ice-Veins.

As Lull made casual conversation with a few interesting-looking people who were probably also there for sex who kept turning out to be quite boring, Ice-Veins kept coming up. She brought him up once herself. Well, surely not more than twice. Maybe thrice. The man was very strictly law-abiding, everyone agreed with, but then Lull started hearing something good: that the man had a huge sexual appetite. Lull learned this night he had another nickname, or honorary Nord title, apart from the two she knew about—Ice-Veins and Horse-Killer: in the city's low places he was also known as Solitar the Naughty. Upon hearing his third sobriquet, Lull decided she liked the man, rather than hated him. Nobody she spoke with seemed to know quite why or how Sol had earned that last nickname—or the first two, either—except that people started calling him "the Naughty" after The Winecock's every woman whore noticed he'd fucked _all _of them. Every single one. If several boring people's speculation could be believed, most of those women hadn't even asked him for payment, he was such a good lover, and a few had paid _him_ for the pleasure. That excited Lull, though she assumed it was nothing more than bawdy speculation. People liked to think the worst (or sometimes best, depending on your perspective of sexual relations) of other people.

Lull got so engaged in learning about Solitar the Naughty's carnal exploits that she forgot to keep drinking—she looked for the place's main barkeeper, Anina, a Nord woman with great legs she always hid, and couldn't find Anina and so talked to one of the lesser bartenders, an apprentice, a Bosmer everyone called Nightscrub, to ask him to bring her a whore to talk to about Sol the Mightily Naughty. Nightscrub smiled and said he hadn't heard the man called quite such before but liked it, and that he'd go get someone for her if she'd buy another drink. He said he hadn't seen her drink in dangerously nigh an hour. Lull said he was mistaken, bought a cheap ale and downed it in approximately one gulp, then slammed the empty wood mug down on the bar.

"I'll get you a whore," Nightscrub said, impressed, smiling.

"To talk to," Lull said.

"Sure," Nightscrub said, making a penis-in-vagina gesture with his hands. Lull didn't enjoy it.

A moment later a pretty but entirely too young-looking harlot Lull had seen at Winecocks frequently, but never hired to fuck, appeared. Metina the Thicc. Nord. Ignoring how she looked not more than eighteen, she was skinny, but gorgeous, with green eyes and red hair and really no tits but an ass that would _not_ quit. Every time Lull saw her behind she thought Metina was some other adult with the best ass ever and she'd get excited, but then she'd see the hair and absurdly perfect hourglass figure and Metina's face and be very let down; she was far too young. If only Lull could've put Metina's ass on someone she hired regularly and only felt somewhat guilty about hiring (that she'd hired anyone at all for sex, not that she'd hired this person), Loth Palenix, called The Priestess, a Cyrodiil whose family was of middling nobility in some place Lull had never heard of whose family disowned her for her "whoredom" who turned to Dibella, was welcomed, but then found she had no patience for religious services—not even the sexy kind—and little for clothing in general and wound up in the thief's capital of Skyrim.

"Hiya, Guildmaster," Metina greeted Lull. The words were plain but Metina tried to emboss them with seduction. On anyone else's body they might've worked on Lull, though Metina sounded young, too, beyond looking young. Lull wasn't sure how many times she'd turned Metina down. Other people didn't often. Some people seemed to like Metina for her youth even more than her ass. "Fancy a fuck?" Metina added. She aimed her voluminous ass at Lull and looked back at Lull from over a shoulder.

"You still look too young," Lull said.

"I won't forever," Metina said, moving right on. "You wanted to talk about Solitar?"

"His High Naughtiness, aye," Lull said. _Damn Nords_, she thought. _They've wormed their way even into my diction_.

Metina laughed. Lull wanted to look at her ass some more, but then got lost in her eyes. Metina's eyes seemed older than all the rest of her body. "Nightscrub told me you just came up with a new title for him. Have you—"

"No," Lull said. Metina was about to ask if Lull had fucked him, Lull knew. Lull stopped her to keep her from making vulgar gestures. She didn't want to see such a young person be so sexual.

"You only wanna talk about him?" Metina said.

"Yes," Lull said. "What will that cost?"

"I have a proposition:" Metina said. "Tell me you'll consider my more fun services—" She gestured to her posterior and her pussy. "—and I'm free until somebody else wants them."

"Deal," Lull said. "Why'd he hire you?"

"He sampled every woman here," Metina said.

"It wasn't for your age?" Lull said.

"No," Metina said. "He didn't want to play with that at all. He liked my fun bits. He was most interested in my rear, as anyone with good taste is," she said, brandishing her ass at Lull again briefly. "Not my age, nor my visage. But I spoke truly: He wanted to bed _every_ working woman here," she said, "and he _did_. I was one—no, I was toward the middle. Not first nor last. Apparently he does that every year or so."

"'That' meaning he fucks every whore in Winecocks?" Lull said. "Annually?"

Metina winced at the word "whore" but didn't linger on it. "Yes," she said.

"How many times has he been with you?" Lull said.

"I've only been here a few months—I'll get that man under my spell yet, mark my words. This ass needs a sugar daddy," Metina said, joking. "Only a handful of times. No, less. Three."

"Three's an auspicious number," Lull said, thinking, _He paid to fuck this woman three times, and he hasn't been with me once._ Lull deduced: he must only like very thin women who somehow had big tits or a great ass.

"Not when you have to pay rent," Metina said.

"True," Lull said, giggling. She didn't pay rent anymore—people paid it to her—but she still remembered it. "What was he . . . like?" Lull said. "Good? Bad?"

"The word 'good' falls so far short of his excellence I'm embarrassed to use it about him," Metina said. "He came here—to pay—for at least one of us daily for a month when the sex part was just starting. Brothel, I mean. I didn't work here then, but everyone has agreed with this, that I know of. He refused the discount this place offered for the first month. A promotional deal. So he paid full price, and tipped well. Or so everyone tells me. I thought he did it out of shame, but later learned he didn't—he doesn't feel bad about paying for pleasure, not at all. He's proud of it. Unlike some people I see. He _still _tips well, I can verify. The first time he was with me . . . " Metina blushed prettily, and touched her own lips. "I wouldn't let him pay me."

"You were _that_ satisfied?" Lull said.

"Astonished," Metina said. "Not merely satisfied. And I tried to pay _him_, our second time."

"What about the third time?" Lull said.

"Group thing," Metina said. "The second time was too. The third's more fun to speak of, though, because it's so unusual. I've never heard of anyone thinking of such a lovely, naughty idea before: Sol paid almost every woman here, for a whole night, at the same time, for _constant_ cock-sucking. I've never enjoyed sucking cock that much."

"Why not all of you?" Lull said. "If he's throwing gold around."

"It wasn't about a display of wealth," Metina said. "I think maybe he'd just been with someone who wouldn't give head, and got frustrated. To answer your question: altruism, I should think. He said he didn't want anyone to have to go the night unsated. Clients, I mean." Metina laughed. "He said if no one else came to the inn that night, or if it closed, he'd pay to fuck all of us, and maybe some of the men too."

Lull felt her face burning. She'd never before been interested in a man who "went both ways," as they said. "That's filthy!"

"I know, right?" Metina said. "Don't you just love it? He's so . . . unabashed. You know about Haelga, right? Her marks?"

"I do," Lull said. "I think the only people who don't are tourists."

Metina smiled but then got serious and said, "She does that as an excuse. Religion. She _should _be proud of herself. Love enough to share. Solitar—I mean, His High Naughtiness—" They laughed. "—has . . . he's _so _unabashed!"

"You just said that," Lull said.

"I don't know how better to put it," Metina said. "There's no judgment in that man."

"Excuse me?" Lull said, feeling her temper roused. The entire city knew of her arrest and incarceration by Solitar.

"Not like that," Metina said. "I beg your forgiveness, Guildmaster."

"You're forgiven," Lull said.

Metina curtsied cutely. _She's just _begging_ for it_, Lull thought. Resenting her body for wanting Metina's.

"He is staunchly in favor of upholding existing laws, aye," Metina said. "I misrepresented—accidentally, of course."

"You might say he enforces laws . . . rigidly," Lull said.

Metina giggled cutely. An affectation. _I wish I giggled cutely_, Lull thought. _Or did anything cutely_. "I _would _say that," Metina said.

"And rigorously," some other harlot passerby said, laughing. Lull didn't recognize her—dark elf, irrepressibly large-breasted with an alarming amount of cleavage and ugly knees a short dress displayed. _Maybe she's new?_ Lull thought.

"What else happened at that . . . cock-sucking orgy?" Lull said.

The other harlot sat on Lull's other side at the bar, evidently part of the conversation.

"Well, you know us," Metina said. "Some are about the business, money. They did as paid. But me and Loth and a few others got so excited from just watching it all that after a few turns of his we _had to _ravish him."

"And ravish him we did!" the dark elf whore said. Both whores laughed.

"Even Lilivah got into it later on," Metina said, gesturing at the uninvited dark elf.

"Yeah?" Lull said to the dark elf with the tits.

"I'm usually only business," Lilivah said. "That night . . . was special."

"I hope we can do that again sometime," Metina said, reaching around Lull and bumping into one of her tits on the way to grab one of Lilivah's sizable tits, then grabbing and squeezing it. Lilivah fake-gasped, but then really smacked Metina's hand off of her. "_I'd _pay to see his seed on your skin again, honey," she said to Lilivah.

Lilivah liked that. "I'd allow you to pay me for the privilege of licking it off me again," she said.

Metina snickered darkly.

Lull felt uncomfortable. "How long did he last?" she asked both whores. "Is his cock nice?"

"Oh yeah," Metina said. "Longer than I expected."

"Longer than I'm used to," Lilivah said. "Even with Altmer."

"What?" Lull said, puzzled by the racial comment.

"Mer tend to last longer than men," Lilivah said.

"You don't know that," Metina said. She looked back to Lull. "She thinks elves are _so_ special. Sol is. _Elves _aren't." She looked back to Lilivah. "Men around here just aren't used to exotics like you," she said. "Their first elf. Of course they spurt quickly!"

"You know not of what you speak," Lilivah said and stomped away, turning her back to Metina.

Lull looked to Metina like "What was _that _about?" but Metina waved it off.

"Before—I didn't mean how long until Sol the Naughty loosed his seed," Lull said. "Or should it be 'lost?' No matter, I meant . . . You said he paid for the entire night. How long did he really endure such attention? An hour or two?"

"The whole night," Metina said, with reverence. "He climaxed more than once. As any man would under my attention. And some other lesser women's. And he had to _work _the next day." She laughed. "Mayhap unwise, that."

"With breaks in-between?" Lull said.

"Occasionally," Metina said. Lull got the impression Metina was low-key judging her for asking so many questions. Metina continued, "I think more for us than for him. That man could go for days if he wanted to. People—some of the old-timers here say he's a warfighter. Fought in days-long battles, all that. He doesn't like talking about it, but some of us do. Loth swears the jarl's son—the one that wants to suck Ulfric's cock—told her that Sol told him he fought in the Great War, and even other wars before it."

"How old is he?" Lull said. "He'd have to be fifty-something. I didn't think him older than thirty. Too vigorous."

"Elves can do that," Metina said. "Live long. I hadn't heard anything about their . . . endurance before I met Sol. His Filthy Naughtiness, I mean." She laughed. So did Lull; she couldn't help it. "He says it's not true, that elves always last longer than men. Before coming. Anyhow. My thinking is, if the man can fight for days, I don't see why he couldn't _fuck _for days. I wouldn't fight for money, but I _love_ dick."

"Is he . . . gentle?" Lull said.

"You _want_him!" Metina said. "_So_ badly!"

"No I don't," Lull said. She attempted to say so firmly, but it rang false. "Maybe a little."

"You do," Metina said. "It's my job, seeing truth. But yes, he's gentle. He can be. I mean, he's whatever you want him to be. On that legendary cock-sucking night it was about what he wanted, at first. When we all—most—started jumping on his cock, it became more . . . egalitarian. That was a great night. You go both ways, right?"

"What?" Lull sputtered.

"You heard!" Metina said. "You mostly come here for men, I hear. But women too. Is that . . . I wondered: Do you truly enjoy both? Men and women?"

"Don't tell anybody," Lull said, beginning, but Metina interrupted.

"A joke, surely," Metina said. "We all talk. You—"

"Don't call me Shirley," Lull said.

Metina giggled. "Fine, Guildmaster," she said, leaning more closely into Lull, touching her arm. "We _have to _talk amongst us," Metina said. "For self-defense. Maybe a man with a tiny cock hires one of us and we can't help laughing, so he hurts us. We _all _need to know that. About cruelty, or violence, or both. I don't care about cock size, but I know most men do. Or perhaps a man talks a big show but always bursts in seconds once you get his cock out, and then gets ashamed or indignant, and refuses to pay. Or tries to."

"Is it all about men?" Lull said.

"Of course not," Metina said. "They do tend to cause the most problems, though, react the most rashly and violently. It's not an easy job; I _like _fucking, but it's not only sex people pay for. Sometimes it's innocent, like to impress other men with your date to a ball, or for someone to talk to, or to pretend for a night you're their lover, rather than just for pleasure. Sometimes it's to have power over someone. Fantasy. I get the impression you come calling here for straight-up sex. Pleasure. Mechanical skill."

Lull couldn't meet Metina's knowing eyes.

"Don't be embarrassed," Metina said, rubbing Lull's arm kindly. Oddly motherly. "There's _nothing_ to be embarrassed of. None of us judge anyone. Some of us might make japes, but we don't judge. Well, Calda does, but that's what people pay her for."

"Calda!" Lull said. "That's her name. I keep telling myself I'll try hiring her someday, yet I'm always too afraid to."

"Don't fear," Metina cooed. "Of course, she's not nearly as skilled nor as fiendishly attractive as me, but she's good, she's still worth the price. Which is reasonable. She says it's all in the mind. The mind matters, naturally, but me, I like to get my pussy licked."

Lull shrugged in agreement.

"You asked about his cock?" Metina said, biting her lip. Probably another affectation.

"I did," Lull said, smiling.

"METINA!" somebody else shouted—some drunkard, on the opposite side of the building, upstairs. Winecocks had a very open layout; its second and third floors overlooked the ground level and the bar from balconies. One oft heard naughty noises echoing about the place. Lull spied a balding Nord with white eyebrows with a large bottle—no, with a small cask in one hand. Metina looked at the source of the yell. Her eyebrows went up—cutely, of course—in question, but there was no way the drunk Nord saw that much detail. He concluded, "LET'S FUCK!"

"OKAY!" Metina yelled back at him, surprisingly loudly. She looked to Lull and said, "A woman must work." She kissed Lull's hand and left.

Nightscrub showed up instantly and suggested another round at Lull. She accepted and paid and he said, "You know he's _here_, do you not?"

"Who?" Lull said, in a second somehow having become certain that Nightscrub was talking about Ulfric Stormcloak. Not that the man ever left Windhelm.

"Your quarry?" Nightscrub said, pointing. "Sol the Mighty Naughty."

Lull felt eyes on her, assumed they were Solitar's and hid behind the bar reflexively, then resurfaced, and stumbled from the drinking she'd already done, and finally recovered, though by that time Nightscrub had lowered his arm. He took pity on her and pointed Solitar out again.

Solitar, His Naughtiness High, looked to be holding court out on the floor with a couple of whores. Most people got very handsy in Winecocks, but he didn't even have someone on his lap, as most of its visitors did. His whole group was speaking animatedly. Relaxed with one another. Happy. He didn't look pent-up or sexually frustrated at all, the bastard.

Lull started walking his way before she could stop herself or think about it.


	4. Unbound

**IV: Unbound**

When Tluldir arrived at Winecocks, she'd been so intent on drinking-then-hooking-up she hadn't noticed a band of minstrels playing music. She hadn't noticed them playing, the whole time, as she talked about her . . . arch enemy? lust-target? She only noticed the band as she strode toward Solitar. They were playing some instrumental traditional Nordic dreck which Lull nonetheless had to admit fit the inn/brothel's environment well. It felt bawdy and fun. Lull imagined that if it had lyrics they would've been about a Nord man killing a bunch of elves and then fucking a dragon. Or maybe fucking a bunch of elves and killing a dragon.

So it was apropos when she went right up to Solitar—several trollops and two uniformed city watchpeople were gathered around him, but none of them stopped her—and the first thing he said to her was, "Ever heard the dumb Nord joke?"

One of Solitar the Naughty's companions left the group as Lull arrived; as Lull approached, another of Sol's companions hopped onto his lap like she owned it: a tall Breton with what had to be the biggest pair of tits in Skyrim. Lull halted. The woman, another trollop, seemed to take a bite of his ear, and then presumably said something. But just as Lull was about to give up and return to the bar, the Breton—tall for a Breton, but still short for anyone else—hopped back off His Naughtiness and strode to the bar like she owned the establishment itself—floor, walls, ceiling, bar, drinks—too. She walked right past Lull, and didn't seem to notice her.

Lull's mind went blank at Sol's question, then the word "No" fell out of her mouth.

"I've heard variations, but here's the constant:" Sol said. Lull didn't understand why all the other people sitting around him weren't talking anymore. Several side-conversations between his . . . whore-companions? whorepanions? . . . ceased, and they all listened to him, looking from him to Lull and back. He looked to a Nord woman in maybe her thirties, wearing next-to nothing and sitting on another Nord woman's lap (that bottom Nord was older, and very nearly appropriately-clothed), and said, "Jyten, will you play the kindly bar-goer, please?"

"Happy to," presumably-Jyten said. She was the one on top. Lull stared at the battle scars and Nordic knotting tattoos on her rather muscled belly, shoulders and arms. Lull still didn't understand what that knotting stuff was, or what any of it meant.

Sol looked back to Lull like he was excited to share this. Grinning, he said, "A blind Cyrodiil walks into a bar not unlike this one, but with only sixty people in it, sits, pays for a bottle of wine and a glass, notices they sat by another bar-goer—" He gestured to Jyten, who bowed at Lull for some reason. "—and says to them—" He looked to Jyten but kept his mouth toward Lull. "—'Wanna hear a joke about a dumb Nord?'" he said. When he spoke in the blind Imperial's voice, he dropped his own Altmeri accent and vocal tics and did a rather good impression of an Imperial on the spot. Caricatured, but what good impression wasn't? Several of the people in his—their?—group, the whorepanions, laughed at that alone.

Jyten giggled but stayed in character—atop the older Nord woman's lap, she made like she was sitting on a stool at a bar. Jyten exaggerated her own Nordic accent as she replied, "Before you tell it, you need to know something."

"Said the fellow bar-goer," Sol said, back in his normal voice. He sounded nearly as cocksure and confident as any Altmer but without the bloated arrogance or masturbatory racial self-importance or entitlement, Lull noticed. She liked that, if little else about him. She liked his lack of haughtiness, and his surfeit of height. And his combat prowess. Three things. Sol looked to Lull and pretended to be conspiratorial as he said, "An astute listener will note that the fellow bar-goer is a Nord. And that, being blind, even a Cyrodiil with _no_ _interest_ in other people's cultures—or who thinks his superior to them—would _have to _perceive that detail." He sat back up, no longer conspiratorial. "To whit, the Cyrodiil says," Sol said, pantomime-pouring wine into a glass and then smelling the wine as he used his character-voice again: "'What's that?' To which the kindly bar-goer says:"

"For one thing, the bartender is a Nord," Jyten-as-bar-goer-on-a-stool said. The older Nord beneath her put a hand on Jyten's thigh as she spoke, but Jyten didn't seem to notice it, or if she did she didn't mind it. "And so is the doorman," Jyten continued. "The woman on your other side—she's a Nord too." Jyten pointed at various other Nords around them in their real surroundings. "Those two big strappers by the bar—they're Nords. Actually, almost everyone in here is a Nord. As am I," Jyten said, leaning toward Sol.

"Quoth the Nord bar-goer, leaning close to the blind Cyrodiil," Sol said.

"So," Jyten said, still in character, "you still wanna tell that joke about a dumb Nord?"

"The blind Cyrodiil clears his throat—" Sol cleared his throat. "—and sounds a tad discouraged as he says, 'Nah, I'd just have to explain it sixty times.'"

Sol's whorepanions burst into laughter, Jyten and the two uniformed city watchpeople included. Sol smiled and took a drink of something dark from a near-empty glass, inclining his head toward Lull. Lull suddenly felt self-conscious and awkward, like a hearth had been brought underneath her, but then she got the joke all at once and involuntarily laughed along with everyone else.

A few of Sol's whorepanions clapped at the joke as he drank what was left of his own drink. He bowed politely at the applause.

The tits—err, woman—who'd left the group as Lull arrived got back, and climbed back onto Sol's lap. She bore gifts: another full drink for him, and one for herself. Gods, but she was beautiful.

"A simple story well told," said one of his whorepanions, a dark elf man. The busty Breton hadn't even noticed Lull yet. The dark elf man was rather scantily-clad. Lull had hired man-whores here on several occasions; if this man was one of the place's whores, she'd never noticed him before. He wasn't bad-looking. Though he seemed rather soft.

"Thank you," Sol said to the dark elf, accepting his drink with a silly amount of cheek-kisses between himself and the busty Breton. They put their arms around each other. Lull knew nothing of Sol's personal life, really, but somehow she felt like he was already her property; the Breton atop him challenged her. Sol looked to Lull and said, "Lady Guildmaster, I suspect you'd like a word."

"I would," Lull said.

The Breton on Sol's lap acknowledged Lull now, and gave her a rather naked look of "You're not even close to good enough for him." Which hurt, somehow.

Sol looked disappointed, perhaps only to no longer have a beautiful woman with silly-large tits draped about him. He leaned close to that woman and said something Lull heard none of. The Breton gave Lull a look of displeasure, but allowed him to help her get back off of him, and then for him to stand. She took his spot. Neither of them spilled so much as a drop of their drinks as they changed places, and left Sol standing. Impressive. He stepped toward Lull.

"Before you say anything—again, I apologize for detaining you for so long," he said. He meant it.

"It's all right," Lull said. "You were just doing your job. Unlike . . . " Lull's eyes wandered to the two uniformed city watchpeople nearby.

"Individual decision," Sol said. "You can't control people. And, I thank you. I wanted to release you at the end of the second day, but—"

"—Didn't," Lull said.

"True but irrelevant," Sol said. "Both Maven and Jarl Law-Giver have _very_ firm, clear standing agreements with me: If I imprison _anyone_, be they a street urchin or whatever the sitting emperor is called, I am not to release that person without their say-so. And as to you on your second day of jail, I lacked that say-so. Either's. Things in The Rift are so bent that if I'd released you, I wouldn't have been doing my duty. As it is here."

"As a simple city watchman?" Lull said.

"Not quite," Sol said. "Anymore. Though that's the essence of it. I get rotated around, such as to the farmlands, or loaned out on occasion." He took a long pull of his drink.

All of Sol's whorepanions were watching this interaction—especially Lull's part of it—closely. In silence.

"Can we speak at the bar?" Lull said.

"As you wish," Sol said. "May I meet you there in a moment? I have adieus to bid."

"Fine," Lull said and showed her back to him. He went back to his friends. Lull heard one harlot say, "You're _not_ leaving?!"

By the time Lull had secured two stools at the bar, Sol was still saying his goodbyes. Everyone hugged him and kissed him on both cheeks. In some sort of jape, the two uniformed guards—who hadn't removed their helms—pretended to do the same. It was so absurd Lull couldn't help but giggle. Despite herself. Sometimes she forgot people other than herself had senses of humor. Lull gathered that the whorepanions were either close friends of his, or all drunk; likely some of both. One of them grabbed a fistful of Sol's ass during the embrace. He didn't seem to mind.

Sol dodged a very drunken, three-person brawl on his way to Lull. She did enjoy his martial prowess, if only that one thing about him. Also his voice and his lips. So, three things.

"Greetings, my lady," Sol said as he reached her, as if he hadn't just walked straight through a fight. He stood waiting for a hand to be offered; Lull gestured to the seat beside her. "I hope your day's gone well." Lull didn't mean that as a slight, though he might've taken it as one. She didn't know the first thing about Altmeri etiquette or table manners, except that they were complicated.

"It's fine," Lull said.

"Do you accept my apology?" Sol said.

"I do," Lull said.

"To seal the deal of that—may I buy you a drink? Of your choosing. Or dinner. Whatsoever you desire. I know not if you've eaten—"

Lull cocked an eyebrow and grinned at the "whatever you desire," said, "I've eaten, but yes, I'll take that drink," and gestured over whomever behind the bar.

She had the good fortune of getting the bar's main tender, its manager really, a stocky Nord called Anina Iron-Belly, who ambled over without hesitation. She had the most wonderful legs, but always hid them from view, either behind the bar counter or with clothing.

"An unlikely pairing," Anina said, nodding at both of them, and smiling at the corner of her mouth, with equal respect—thief-master and law-enforcement—which Lull was almost insulted by. "What'll ya have? First round's on me." She sounded amused at the pair of them.

Lull looked to Sol, wanting him to choose. He didn't want to order for her at all, and didn't even acknowledge it, saying, "I believe the powers-that-be conspired to prevent this meeting."

"Think so?" Lull said, mostly looking over the various drinks on offer.

"Which powers?" Anina said.

"Maven and Jarl Law-Giver," Sol said to Anina. "I _do_ so think," he said to Lull. "I'd be happy to be mistaken. A way I've heard them speaking in the last few days—I'm confident they kept us apart, by design."

Anina grinned.

"Did they giggle and point at you?" Lull said.

"No," Sol admitted. "Though, for instance, they usually both have me within earshot for anything—not so for a few brief moments, of late. Also, everyone on both their staffs has told me so—Anuriel, Unmid, Harrald, Maul. Even Wylandriah."

Lull shrugged, trying to say without words that he should've led with that last piece of evidence.

"I insist you shut up and take my money, for the first round if nothing else," Sol said to Anina. "Rum for me, please," he said, and looked to Lull as he said, "For the lady?"

Lull looked at him surprised before saying to Anina, "Rum. Straight."

Anina raised an eyebrow. "Coming right up."

"Were you showing off with that Nord joke?" Lull said.

"No," Sol said.

"That you could tell it at a Nord bar, with Nord patrons, and get a Nord whore to participate in it?" Lull said.

"Don't say 'whores,'" Sol said.

"Why not?" Lull said.

"Because you say it as a negative," he said. Lull didn't understand. "Anyway Jyten's not a sex worker. She simply likes to dress like that, and people here don't judge her for it. Or the scars."

" . . . Oh," Lull said. "Were either of them whores? Sex workers."

"The one on the bottom works here," Sol said. "But no, I wasn't showing off—I don't care about status or race, or prestige or position, whatever you meant by that. I thought you came here to attack me, so I told a joke hoping to relax you." He smiled. "I see what you say about the Nord aspect of it; I didn't notice that 'til afterward. It was simply the first joke I thought of. Thank you for putting more thought into it than I did, I suppose."

"You're—I wasn't going to attack you," Lull said, interrupting herself.

"That's good," Sol said. "I wondered why you didn't hire someone to kill me. Or assault me."

"I've been in Riften for eight or ten months," Lull said. "A few days is nothing. And I was guilty."

"I know," Sol said. "It's a best intentions matter. I intended you to be locked up for at most a day. Not more."

"I know," Lull said. "Besides, you helped me see who my true friends are."

"How so?" Sol said. She believed he already knew, without asking, even before he locked her up. A lot of people had visited her, but not one of them had broken her out, or tried to.

"As you said, Maven or Laila could've had me out in an instant. In a word. But they didn't," Lull said. "As for the rest of them—some visited. They all—nearly all—mocked or insulted me. I felt like no one had my back. Supported me."

"So your true friends are . . . " Sol said. It seemed like an honest question.

"Just one person," Lull said, leaning closer to Sol. "You."

His eyebrows went up. He didn't pull back or lean away in the least. "I would be proud to consider you a friend—"

"You are," Lull said, putting a hand on his shoulder. He felt warm through his simple clothing.

He glanced at her hand, then perhaps noticed her cleavage for the first time as he looked back up to her eyes. Hers didn't compare with those of the Breton who'd sat atop him moments ago, but he was still a man. Well, a male. He said, "I don't think I earned that by imprisoning you against your will."

"I was brazen," Lull said. "Any other guard who caught me would've taken advantage, in many ways. By sex or bribe. You . . . showed me the truth. And you were kind. Respectful. I didn't deserve that. But I still got it—from you." She took one of his hands in both of hers and leaned yet closer to him. She saw his eyes check in the direction of the Breton woman. Lull was close enough that she didn't need to raise her voice anymore to be audible over the bar's din.

"Where's your dog?" Lull asked Sol.

"At the watch barracks," Sol said. "He had a long day; before I came here, I took him for a long run, then dropped him off there to rest and be off-the-job for a while."

"Do you like it here? In Riften?" Lull asked. Sol's eyes looked sad.

"Not anymore," Sol said. "Not really." He stared off into the distance, lost in thought.

"I don't either," Lull said. "Anymore." Sol's eyes snapped right back to hers. He'd looked at her before plenty, wary of her movements and motives, but he'd never looked at her as if he had anything in common with her. This new look felt wonderful. "For such a long time, I hugely looked forward to getting here—finally, the thief's capital of majestic Skyrim. But . . . I've always been rather disappointed with it. I'm—" She paused, looking abashed. "I've never been able to put words to this before."

"I've thought about it a lot—precisely this same thing—but I've never wanted to speak with anyone about it," Sol confessed. He made it look easy to admit something so powerful. He truly looked into Lull's eyes, now. He'd never seen honesty in them before. "I have this feeling as if I've been looking for something all my life, and I've never come close to finding it. I'm not sure if I would know if I did, anymore. Now I'm . . . suspended in thought here, meditation. Contemplation. For . . . " he trailed off.

"For the meantime," Lull said, at almost exactly the same instant he thought it.

"Yes," Sol said. He felt himself getting lost in Lull's eyes. She seemed to be doing the same in his.

Anina slammed two pewter steins onto the bar, seemingly right beside Lull's ear for the stun it gave her. Lull took her hands off Sol and leaned back, embarrassed. "Round's up," Anina said. She didn't seem aware of Lull's previous intimate proximity with Sol. "That'll be one septim."

Sol looked to Lull, contrite, and dug into a pocket, saying to Anina, "To anybody else that'd be at least twelve."

"Your money carries more weight than most," Anina said, accepting Sol's one coin.

"Thank you for the drinks and for letting me pay," Sol said to her.

"You're welcome, my friend," Anina said, smiling.

The instant Anina went away, Lull seized her rum stein and imbibed the drink as quick as she could, spilling only a little.

"Are you—" Sol began to say.

"Let's fuck," Lull said, too loudly, as she felt her belly burning, before she could stop herself.

"Any certain positions?" Sol asked, putting an arm around her waist.

"Just bend me over the table and fuck me," Lull said, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. "Or maybe the bed."


	5. Slen

**V: Slen**

Sol had to steady Lull for a moment because she stood far too quickly, but she was otherwise fine to walk. Then she had to steady him because he stood too quickly, himself, to steady her. She kept her arm around his shoulders, and didn't let him remove his from her waist, for unrelated reasons of the flesh.

They made it to her house, Honeyside, in record time.

Lull's húskarl began to greet her as she arrived, as her body and Sol's were starting to feel like one new whole rather than two lonely individuals, but Lull cut her húskarl off to say, "Iona, could you—be somewhere else until morning?"

"As you wish, my thane," a Nord warrior Sol had never seen before in heavy armour said. She gave Sol a look of distrust.

"This is Sol. We trust him," Lull said, noticing that look, but also smiling, touching Sol's ass playfully. He reached around so he could touch her ass, playfully, as well. She liked that. She looked to him and smiled. Her rear felt softer than he'd expected it to.

They rained kisses on each other—mostly lips to lips but also elsewhere on the face. They both tasted of drink. Sol considered asking her if they could wash their mouths out so he could taste _her_, but it seemed too odd a request, and then he became entangled with her bodily and forgot about it. Lull was a more aggressive kisser than a good one, but she seemed to put her whole body into the kiss and he simply enjoyed her anyway. He had fun. They laughed and giggled as they kissed, and explored each other's bodies. Her entire body was lovely. Fleshy. She loved herself. Sol touched everything but her pussy, and she loved everything he did to her.

At some point, interminably after the rain of kisses began, Sol abruptly stopped sucking on her tongue and grinding his teeth against her lovely, full lower lip—her upper lip was equally delightful and succulent—to kiss over her neck, which he'd somehow not already done. He'd touched her neck, and her tits and her ass and her thighs plenty, but kissed none of them. A frightfully unwise omission. He began remedying it.

Lull's breath hitched when she noticed him going for her neck. He thought it apprehension, but didn't alter course—she'd seemed to very much enjoy when he'd earlier touched the soft flesh abound in that part of her body. The instant his lips touched her throat, she gasped. In pleasure. A surprise to him. He felt himself humming in contented recognition. _A special place_, he noted. Though she seemed so into this, so aroused, probably any spot on her body was especially sensitive. Erogenous zones broadened, flushed with blood, alert. She felt very warm even through her immodest clothing. Only slightly immodest, however.

He kissed her neck further, varying how and where he placed each kiss, every one at a faster pace than he meant for—trying to match the pace at which she pulled him into her and kissed his head and made fists in his clothing and what little hair he had and moaned and sighed. Her arousal intensified his own. He tried to meet it.

Not more than four seconds into his kissing her neck, she begged him aloud, "Touch my pussy."

"Later," he tried to tease while also giving a clear impression of his intent. He was deliberately ignoring just one part of her lovely, warm, demonstrative body.

"You first?" she said. By it he believed she meant, "Do you want me to suck your cock?" If she did mean that, he appreciated it very much. If she didn't, he didn't know what she meant.

"No, _you_ first," he said, his face still in her neck, but now he moved his hands to her clothing to start removing every item of it from her. "In due time."

"_Gods_," she expelled. Not quite a moan or a sigh but far from normal speech. "Whatever you want." She urged her tits at him, bending backward, using both her arms to push his face between her tits.

He embraced that and lifted her bodily and sat her ass up on her home's small dining table (fortunately empty on that side) and dove between her tits, rubbing his face over both of them and kissing and teasing and sucking on the skin. As he dragged his tongue around one of her nipples over her clothing, he felt her legs wrap around him and squeeze and pull him closer, and he felt this volcanic center where her legs met. All he wanted was to keep kissing her neck, he meant his mouth to return there, but she reached down and used both hands to pull one of her tits free of her clothing, up and out. "Suck my tits," she ordered even as he brought his lips toward the now-exposed nipple. He hastened for but didn't go directly to the nipple—he kissed his way down her neck, and then moved his arms, to hold her closer with one of them (its hand generously grasping her ass) and with the other to cup her other, still-clothed tit. He tried to find her other tit's nipple through clothing but the clothing's stitching and style and layers and Lull's constant movement and rapid breathing made it a challenge. Meanwhile his lips met her areola and he kissed and licked around the nipple—then she foiled his plan, grabbed her own tit and manually pushed the nipple between his lips. So he sucked and licked and squeezed her other tit, harder than he meant to.

"_Solitar—Oh, gods, fuck me_," she whispered.

He nibbled at the nipple—a tease—and she gasped again and he released it from his mouth to say, "In due time," then he switched hands: one to roll and pinch and stroke Lull's exposed nipple while he still interchangeably sucked and licked it, the other hand to free her other tit.

"You animal," she said, as a high compliment. "Wait, I have an idea."

"Wait to fuck you?" he said, feeling his cock surge as he freed her other nipple and looked at it. Her tits were exact copies of one another. Somehow he'd expected, or maybe wanted, them to be shaped differently, or for them to have different-looking nipples or some such. Not that he would've minded either way.

Lull's hands and arms released him, though her legs around him remained a squishy yet iron pinion around his back. She said, "No, stop," and he didn't hear it—was only dimly aware she'd said anything, so intent was his focus on her nipples.

To his shame, it took him seconds to recognize Lull's words. Part of that was the heat at the apex of her thighs that he felt all over his lower body.

He noticed what she'd said and immediately unhanded her. He could do nothing about her legs, locked around him. He backed off as much as he could.

"I'm sorry," he said of his delayed response. "Do you want me to leave?" He looked into her eyes and saw no rejection in them, only planning and horniness. At the word "leave" he saw a flash of rage. Suddenly he remembered her title—Dragonborn. He wondered if she could breathe fire. Or was that yet another over-hyped rumor in the published fictional history of Tamriel, like how Tiber Septim had covered Cyrodiil with forests with words uttered after he achieved apotheosis.

"Don't fucking you _dare _leave," Lull said darkly. Perhaps she could breathe fire; he didn't see fit to question her syntax. She didn't release her legs, hooked around his waist. "No. I want to try something." She was still thoroughly lusty. Nipples erect—and wet with his saliva, now.

"You still want me here," Sol said for confirmation.

"Yes!" Lull said, frustrated already. "Gods yes. I'll hurt you if you even _try _to leave my side tonight. I can breathe fire, y'know. I want to . . . pretend something with you."

"I used to be a sailor," Sol offered. "Like—I'm the lone survivor of a shipwreck? On . . . Whore Island?"

Lull laughed heartily. "I like a man with a sense of humor." She smiled, happy. "And—you've done pretend-play scenarios before? While fucking?" She seemed very happy at that idea.

"Occasionally," Sol said. "I know not how good an actor I am. Though I'll try if you want me to."

"I'll forever be grateful to you if you will," Lull said. "Indulge me, please."

"Okay," Sol said, holding her by her hips. He wanted to rip her skirt open, rather than peeling it off her, and _wreck_ her with his cock. He took a deep breath to calm himself.

"It's silly," Lull said. "I know it is. But—you said you don't judge people?"

"That's true," Sol said.

"I . . . " Lull began nervously, but then restarted with confidence: "I want you to pretend you've caught me stealing something. And then I bribe you with sex. On your cock."

They both laughed at the last bit. Sol felt awkward and conflicted about her request, and had to think. Which was difficult with a wonderful, sensual woman attached to him, breathing heavily, obviously aroused. Even more difficult with the naughtiness of both of them still being fully clothed, yet her tits were both out. Nipples too. _Engorged _nipples. And he felt _such_ heat between her legs. Sol looked away.

"Is it . . . too much?" Lull asked uncomfortably.

"No," Sol said, looking back to her. Her eyes, not her tits. "I—"

"I've been fantasizing about this since you caught me," she said.

"Truly?" he said. He wanted to believe it but it seemed far-fetched.

"_Gods_ yes, Sol," she said. "I've never had such a fantasy before. Other fantasies, yes, but not for a city watchman. Not since I became a serious . . . lawbreaker. You're a sexy watchman."

"Thank you, sexy thief," Sol said.

They laughed and kissed. It began chaste, but was somehow filthy and open-mouthed in two seconds, after which they remembered they were mid-discussion and broke the kiss perfectly simultaneously and laughed some more. They held hands, but before Lull could speak Sol cut in, "I need to put your tits away," and then he did just that for her. She seemed impressed with how quickly and smoothly he did it. She went to help him, automatically, only to see he needed no help with the task.

"You seemed genuinely attracted to me," Sol said as he put Lull's tits away, "but I wasn't sure."

"That was real," Lull said. "You wanted me too, yeah?"

"I did. I do," he said. "But I was on-the-job then. It wouldn't be right."

"I respect that, but I don't understand it," Lull said.

"I'm off-duty now, so I'm fine with pretending whatever you want," Sol said.

"Yumm," Lull said, kissing him and then holding him close with her forehead to his. He put his arms back around her. Then put a hand on her face.

"Tell me what you want," Sol said.

"As . . . comfortable as I am with myself, and you, I don't want to do all this in public view," Lull said.

"Prudent," Sol said.

Lull smiled. "Would you be okay with using my home, here? I want to pretend it's someone else's house, that I've broken into. To steal something from," she said, looking around.

"Very well," Sol said. "And I'm . . . coincidentally trespassing? As a lowly guard, who's also a sex pervert?"

Lull laughed. "No," she said. "Um . . . What if I wear my Thieves Guild armour?"

"The full regalia?" Sol said.

"Yes sir," she said and nudged his hips closer to hers, reeled him further in; he groaned. She kissed him—briefly but deliciously. He was hugely erect; she felt him against her. "But not the fancy prestige guild master set, just the normal 'really obviously a thief' tanned brown leather."

"Very well," Sol said.

"I'll have us both start outside in the street," Lull said. "You be a humble sex-pervert guard, just patrolling, and I'll lock my front door, then the scenario begins. And I'll pick the lock and break in. That's breaking the law, right?" She sounded genuinely unsure of it.

"Yes," Sol said, trying not to let irritation seep into his voice. "It would be tampering with private property, I suppose. Going along with your—our—scenario. When we do this I'll pretend—You get it." He cut himself off because she was nodding along with him excessively.

"I'm only making cocksure we understand each other, I'm not mocking you," Lull said. "I _love_ that you're really going to try this for me. I swear I'll let you do anything you want to me after we do my whole scenario." She squeezed him with her thighs, embraced him, kissed him, kissed over his hands. Excited, happy. It was beautiful to behold her like that. "Then—if I break into the place—which in this scenario isn't my own jarl-permitted and legally-purchased property—then that would be trespassing?"

"Correct," Sol said. "That, unlawful entry, breaking and entering." He held her face in one hand. She adored that, leaned into it and him, closed her eyes.

"That would be enough to imprison me," Lull said.

"Yes," Sol said, listening closely, and holding one of her breasts—clothed, now, but with plenty of skin showing care of her blouse's low neckline—with his spare hand. Hefting it, feeling the weight, seeing what she reacted to and didn't, and degrees of both.

"Are you listening?" Lull said, approximately half-joking.

"Yes," Sol said with a fake sigh. He let her breast go and watched it jiggle to stillness, then planted that spare hand on her waist and gave her his complete, full attention.

"So maybe you see me break in, and that's when you come in, pursuing me. You can do that, right?" Lull said.

"Yes," Sol said. "That would make sense. If I witnessed someone in obvious thief garb breaking into a home, as such, I'd be compelled to follow them in to arrest them. Your guild hasn't been so brazen lately."

"Because of _you_," Lull said, smiling. "I've since learned. So, for this sex pervert character we're creating for you—don't be afraid to make it yours, yeah? I'd like that, if you engaged with all this. That . . . that would make it better for me." She smiled as she spoke. Hopeful, with some anxiety, with lust spilling over it all.

"I understand," Sol said.

"We'll probably be giggling at first. That's okay. But I really want you to try to be in-character," Lull said. "Especially early on, so we both really get into it, but later when we fuck, too."

"I'll do my best," Sol said.

"Are you saying that so you can spill your seed in me, or do you really want to do this for me?" Lull said. "Sincere question."

"I will commit to it, Lull," Sol said, smiling earnestly. "I mean that. I'm _interested_ in spurting in you. But I don't want to do this for that. I want to do this to please you. I think it will be nice to indulge and have fun with you. Rather than plain old rutting. I apologize if I came off as facetious, or the like. I'm simply trying to keep in memory all these things. I'm paying attention. Despite how your body distracts me."

"Good," Lull said, smiling. She kissed his cheek. "I'll make it worth your while. Just—I make sure you really want to because I've tried things like this before, and if you don't even _try_ to play the part, and keep only being yourself, I know I'll eventually get frustrated and kick you out. And—I don't want that. I don't want that at all, honey. We should _both _have lots of fun."

"I'm with you," Sol said. "I agree. I'm not—I'm trying to learn the details beforehand, memorize them, know what you want, and so I can ideally stay in-character, as you say, throughout, for as long as you want me to."

"That's the best thing you could say," Lull said and kissed Sol on the lips and lingered, happy and excited and already pleased with him. Everything was boding well. She hadn't dared let herself expect anything close to this. She pulled her lips off him with a loud smooch. "Would it help you if I sucked your cock right now? Until you finish? And then there's no pressure on you to last." He tried to speak but she stopped him, cupped her hand over his mouth. "I want you to know, I'm asking a lot, I know that I am, but I won't forget your pleasure. I just need to play out this fantasy. I have since the first time I saw you. Well—when you arrested me. Apparently I don't remember the _first _time I saw you."

"Do—I'll ask now," Sol said when she let him: "You're asking me to play this character. Not myself, not truly. Well, not in the actions I would commit. I gather we'll both be playing stereotypes somewhat."

"Sure," Lull said. "Please."

"This character's very different from me. Which is fine. But—you'll know it's _me__,_ right? The body. Do you really need _me_, in particular, to do this? I could get you a guard who would _actually _do all that. Is it really me you want?"

"Yes!" Lull said. "You. Only you. I trust you. I _know_ you. I don't hasten to say it, Solitar, but . . . you're the only person in Riften I really trust, right now. So there's that," she said, backing up and counting something on her fingers. "And _yes,_ fucking _yes_, all right, I absolutely want _you_. I don't want someone who would actually do these things. And I haven't been attracted enough to anyone else in months such that I'd want them to stay around after we're done."

"Meaning, you _would _want me to?" Sol said. "Also, didn't you just say something about cock-sucking?"

"Don't be insecure," Lull said. "And yes, I did."

"I'm not. I'm checking I understand," he said.

Lull bit her lip. "Yes. You. Good. It's so sexy that you _want to _communicate. Fairly. Without . . . coercion. Most everyone I've even approached about my fantasies either insults them, or me, or would be out of patience by now."

"I appreciate your perspective," Sol said. "I've been there. You're trying to plan—sort of—anything, and the other person or persons gets bored and says, 'Hey can we just fuck hard for about ten minutes then fall asleep?' That can be fun too, but if it's all you do it gets old, quickly."

"So true," Lull said.

They kissed each other, smiling.

"So yes, very. I want _you_, Solitar Ice-Veins," Lull said, grinning. She was astoundingly beautiful, happy. "You want me, right? You truly will try this play scenario for me?"

"I truly will," Sol said, smiling back at her. "And of course I want you." He borrowed his hand from her waist and checked his cock—still hard. He'd forgotten about it. He was surprised it remained turgid. That happened to him a lot, though; his cock would stay erect for long periods of time. "Still hard."

"That's your _cock_?!" Lull said, eyes bulging, mouth agape. She exaggerated, but not wholly. "I thought it was a club!"

They laughed.

"Actually, can you take it out for me?" Lull said. "I wish to know what I'm dealing with."

Sol brought out his cock without hesitation. His trousers, a newer style, had a fastening closure and a few inches of laces, as some shirts did, so he could piss or fuck without removing the trousers entirely (or letting them form a tripping device about his ankles). He untied those laces, focusing on it alone so he wouldn't fumble, with both hands. Then he noticed his cock was bent at an awkward angle, downward, and refused to be released. He had to undo the trousers' main waist closure. "Damn, I thought that'd work," he said as he switched to the trousers' main waist toggle. Lull giggled. She looked very excited to see his cock. He pushed his pants down and pulled his cock around and out, revealing the whole member to Lull.

"_Sweet Zenithar's scales!_" Lull said, pleased. They both laughed. Sol felt self-conscious—he really didn't care about the size(s) of anyone's secondary sex characteristics, or their bodies at all. However attracted he might be to larger-than-average breasts. Lull felt nervously intimidated. "I _think _that'll fit me," she said, still laughing.

"We'll make it work," Sol said. "Somehow. It's not that big. But thank you. If you truly can't, or simply don't want to, fit it all that's okay. I don't think it's _that _big—"

"You're fine. We're fine," Lull said. "I expected nice, but that's above and beyond."

" . . . You're welcome," Sol said. He didn't know how he should respond to that.

"By the Nine, put that thing away," Lull said of his cock. Her hands kept nearly touching it. "I can't think with it out like that."

Sol put it away, feeling additionally potent and ready and manly. He hoped she wasn't exaggerating her reaction much. He redid his trousers.

"What was I talking about?" Lull said.

"My cock?" Sol said.

"Before that," Lull said.

"That you want me," Sol said. "Viz. fantasy scenario," he added before she could say he was trying to distract her with his cock. He hoped the size was enough for her. She didn't _seem _disappointed, but maybe she'd blustered to cover for such. _No matter_, he thought. He'd do the best he could with everything he had. If his body let her down, it wasn't for something he'd chosen, at the least.

"Right," Lull said. "I'm not sure why I have this fantasy. Suffice to say I do. You're the only man I want to try it—to do it—with. The thing of asking you to play the sex pervert character is . . . I don't know, the fantasy is raunchier than reality. Sometimes I like to _pretend_ I'm being taken advantage of, or like you'd essentially use my sexy body as an object to masturbate yourself with, things like that. But if you ever caught me pickpocketing and said, 'Pay the fee with your cunt, or you're going to jail,' it would be _abhorrent_ to me. This play with you is . . . fun. Safe. I'm in control."

" . . . Does that make me less of a man somehow?" Sol said, sounding inclined to acquiesce to her request.

"No!" Lull said.

"Only wondered," Sol said. "And, yes. I hope you know I'd never do something like that."

"I _do _know," Lull said. "You're special, my love." She kissed him.

He kissed her back, then said, "I'm not special," not meeting her eyes.

"Yes you are," Lull said. "I wouldn't want to do this with anyone else. I wouldn't even bring it up."

"It occurs to me," Sol said, "whatever our future is—our relationship—we haven't made love before. Why something so experimental? For our first time."

Lull seemed to enjoy everything he'd just said. "It's a little out there, I know. I just . . . want us to be able to try different things out together. Any time we want. I've thought about us—this—a lot. Since I touched myself in jail." They smiled with nostalgia. Lull winked at him. They kissed. Smiled together. "I want to set us up for success. In every way. I want us to be able to play out our fantasies together. To express ourselves, at least with one another. Fantasies other than this one. Yours too, whatever they are. I said I'm in control of this one, but . . . well, I am, but you'll be doing most of the work. I feel like . . . I don't know. So long as you don't become—for serious—an awful person, I'll try _any _fantasy of yours after this. As long as we make sure we're both okay with it first, you could bring in another woman, or another man, or use me as your personal cum sock."

"What's a cum sock?" Sol said. He was completely truthful, through and through, which confused Lull.

"How do you not know?" she said. "Some guys stroke themselves off into socks. Cum socks."

"Why?" Sol said.

Lull went blank for a moment, not comprehending Sol's lack of comprehension.

"No matter," Sol said. "Tell me the truth, before we do anything: Do you _truly _like cum? Men's seed?"

"Salty, bitter-but-sweet, white fun stuff," Lull said, grinning. "Well, it _can_ be sweet, too, anyway. I know what it is. And yes, I really do. I _love _cum," she said, grinning, aroused. Sol felt his cock throb. "It's one of my many alluring qualities," she said, patting herself on the back.

"Okay," Sol said, chuckling.

"I don't know your diet," Lull said, "but yours will likely taste fine."

"My cum tastes like honey," Sol said—joking, but he said it completely seriously.

"_My gods_," Lull said, as if she completely believed it.

They both burst into laughter.

They embraced and kissed a few more times.

"This is gonna be fun," Lull said, smiling, breathing rapidly.

"I agree," Sol said, also smiling, also breathing rapidly.

"If your cum tastes off, or not exactly like honey, I'll simply ask you to adjust your diet," Lull said. "Do you drink alcohol much? Beer?"

"Beer, I never do," Sol said. He could smell alcohol on both of their breath. "We both drank tonight. In general, socially, now and again, though usually not in large amounts. A few times a week. I haven't had beer in . . . months. Mayhap years."

"Good," Lull said. "Do you drink a lot of coffee, or eat red meat?"

"No," Sol said. "And no, hardly. I eat mostly greens and fruits. Ironic, considering I used to adhere to the Green Pact strictly. Anyhow. Drink, too, sort of. That—it's bland, but that's my palette for food lately. I eat functionally, not for pleasure."

"Lucky for me, then," Lull said. "You'll taste great, I'm sure. I _do _eat for pleasure. As perhaps you can tell." She smacked one of her thighs. "I'll have to introduce you to seasoning and spices."

"You don't _have _to," Sol said, in a joking tone of, "Don't introduce me to seasoning and spices." They laughed together. "Spice is expensive."

"No, it's happeningnow," Lull said. "I've sworn a solemn oath, you know." She wasn't sure what she meant by that, apart from "it's funny." Sol's minor confusion seemed to make her laugh yet more. "On some nights when we drink a lot, or I make you eat something unusual, you'll have to just come in my pussy instead of my mouth."

She laughed, grinning naughtily. It was wonderful, how aroused she already was. He didn't often have the patience to draw it out this much. Sol was pretty sure he reacted the same way to what she said. Until that moment, Sol had assumed she'd be asking him to simply pull out and spray his seed over her belly, or off to the side, or something else not truly acknowledging his body's ejaculation. Knowing she'd default to letting, or making, him come inside of her was very enticing. He felt his cock surge from normal-endless-hardness to very interested-endless-hardness.

After their laughter abated, Sol blinked and said, "Acceptable."

Lull laughed, then embosomed him momentarily while she still laughed. She said, "I really like you, Sol."

"I really like you too, Lull," Sol said, embracing her. "Do you mind if I make a bawdy joke?"

"I'd love it if you did that," Lull said.

"Pretend I said this after I said 'I really like you too?'" Sol said.

"Okay," Lull said.

Sol said: "Can we get back to plotting your fantasy? I wanna get my cock wet tonight."

Lull seemed taken aback by the bawdiness. She laughed; her entire body laughed, enjoying itself. She slipped—still sitting on her dinner table, though now her legs were no longer tied around his waist, Sol noticed—and reached out wildly to catch herself. One finger poked Sol in the eye; he caught her under her armpit before she could fall off the table or hit her head on something; her other hand grabbed the first solid thing it came across—Sol's cock, of course. It felt both lovely and unpleasant in the same stroke. This woman he wanted to fuck grabbed his cock, great; but also, she used it to stop herself falling, and she clearly thought it was the table, or maybe his shoulder blade?, at first.

They burst into raucous laughter. Lull—balance regained, abashed—immediately released his cock. Sol ignored the confused-aroused-pain and rubbed at his eye without intending to.

"Honey, I am _so_ sorry!" Lull said, laughing. She nearly yelled it.

"It's fine," Sol said. "That was weird. But . . . real? So also sort of sexy. You panicked for an instant, but handled it with good humor."

"I handled your _cock_ too," Lull said, with a big smile.

"You did, at that, my lady," Sol said, smiling. He kissed one of Lull's hands.

Lull laughed more. Then she broke into: "Right. My fantasy love-play scenario: We'll start outside. I'll lock that door—" She pointed to Honeyside's Riften city-side entrance. The house had one other door leading out to, Sol reasoned, probably a balcony overlooking Lake Honrich. He wondered if Lull liked fishing. He didn't, but he did like swimming, and exercise in general. "—on the way out, then pick it open. We'll both be in character, by that point."

"Got it," Sol said. "What's your character?"

"Uh," Lull said, looking apologetic. "Basically just me? Except virginal."

"What?" Sol said. He heard it but thought he must be mistaken.

"I don't know," Lull said. "It would just turn me on—if . . . in this scenario, if I was sort of . . . if I've barely had sex, somehow? Like, I don't have my maidenhead—"

"You _what?!_" Sol joked—pretending he cared.

Lull laughed loudly, Sol along with her.

"Hard to believe, I know," Lull said. "But—the character—me in this fantasy . . . sort of doesn't know much about sex? Maybe I—she—has only done it a few times, and never has had an orgasm. And the one man she's been with was awful and selfish and didn't communicate, so when he came she didn't know what was happening, and he pulled out because his priest or whomever said to, but it was dark and she never saw the cum, or felt it, so she sort of doesn't know what it is? Y'know?"

"I _think_ I follow," Sol said.

"And she doesn't know what positions are," Lull said.

At once, the character's pieces all fell into place for Sol; he understood. "I get you," Sol said.

"Good," Lull said. "So: That's my character. Awkwardly virginal, but once you start forcing yourself on me, you're sort of a monster, but also a really good lover—in better circumstances. So I _really _enjoy it."

"I hope so," Sol said.

"No, I know it'll be good, because it's you," Lull said, smiling, touching his face. "I'm saying, that's what I want to pretend, for my character. As if . . . as if I'm an awkward virgin, but once you thrust into me I just love it, and I'm somehow a total whore immediately."

"Whatever excites you," Sol said, genuinely.

"That's really working for me, at this moment," Lull said, looking away from his eyes. "I might change my mind. We'll find out. And mayhap later tonight I'll want to pretend the reverse, where you're a true virgin and I'm stealing your virtue, but really you're in control and I have to coax—cocks, haha—you into it. But then you're a naturally gifted lover. Because of course you are. Because sex."

"Okay," Sol said. He wasn't sure how to respond to that.

"Forgive me, I'm getting ahead of myself," Lull said. "I'm very excited for this. I might be too tired after just the first play scene I want to do."

"At this rate, maybe," Sol joked.

Lull smacked his shoulder, joking. She giggled. He grinned. "No. So, okay. I break into this lovely abode—" She gestured over her property. "—which in this scenario isn't mine. Then I steal . . . I know! I have a fancy candlestick. I'll show you in a moment, we'll work it out."

"Then I've come in, so I see you stealing it," Sol said. "Perhaps I initially came in to charge you with unlawful entry, but then I see you steal someone else's property."

"Ooh, that's good!" Lull said. "We'll have to talk a little before we start to fuck, so you could say that—'I was going to merely fine you, but now I'm not sure,'" Lull said. "Improvise what you say. It doesn't have to be poetic, only in-character. Remember: Sex-Pervert Guard."

"Got it," Sol said. "Sex-Pervert Guard. I'll—I'm trying to anticipate how this character would react to all these things."

"Good. I like it," Lull said. "Should we give your character a name?"

Sol pondered it. "No," he said.

"Why not?" Lull said. "It can't be 'cuz I don't want to.'"

"No, it's—" Sol said. "I recall when I first got to Riften, long ago. This applies to other cities, though: The guards all looked exactly the same to me. Uniforms, yes, but also, with the closed helms, you can't see any of their faces. Or eyes. So, for all you—your character—know, it could be the same three Nord guys running around constantly changing places while you're not looking."

Lull was laughing so hard by then that Sol had to stop talking.

When she calmed back down she said, "That's perfect. Yes. Your name is Guard."

"Do you mind if it's no name at all?" Sol said. "Say, you may ask for my name, because obviously you want more of this good cock—" Lull laughed, nodding along with him. "—but my character, by then I'm done with you, and for some reason I don't want to see you again—because you've seen my true face, I suppose—so I wouldn't give you a name."

"That's harsh," Lull said, smiling, "but I like it a lot. That way when we're done—" She started laughing.

"What?" Sol said, wondering what the joke was.

"That way, if you're sick of my fat ass by then you can just leave," she said, giggling. But not really joking.

"Lull," Sol said, holding her face in both his hands so she'd look at him. He felt his cock going soft. He'd forgotten about its existence by then, so, weird timing. "I truly do like you. I'm not going to be _done_ with you," he said. "I'll leave when you want me to. Whenever that is. Which—if you _want_ me to leave after this scenario's out, if I'm too bad an actor or you're bored with me—"

"I won't be bored of you, love—" Lull said.

"If you are, tell me, and I'll leave," Sol said. "I'm not going to want to, though."

"I'll never want you to leave," Lull said, embracing him. They held each other. "Or get bored of you."

"That's encouraging," Sol said.

"I keep getting sidetracked by how much I wanna fuck you," Lull said. "And how hard."

"We could just _do that_, and then do your fantasy," Sol offered, mostly teasing.

"No! I want our first time to be special," Lull said.

"So I come in—my character does—and sees you stealing a candlestick," Sol said.

"An _ornate_ candlestick," Lull said.

"Stealing an _ornate _candlestick," Sol said. "Then he—I—decide I'm arresting you for that. What do you want to happen next?"

"The good part!" Lull said. "Except I want _you _to bring up sex, as a way for me to pay for my crimes to society."

"How?" Sol said.

"However it occurs to you," Lull said. "Maybe I'll be begging for forgiveness, then you happen to feel my titties pressing against your armour, or I happen to be touching your thigh, and that's how you get the idea. Maybe you try to be—polite?—about it—"

"I may say something like, 'There are _other _ways to pay,'" Sol said. "'Sexy ways.'"

Lull giggled. "Right! But I'm so clueless I don't know what you mean, so you just blurt out, 'Get on this guard dick, bitch.'"

They both laughed, hard.

"We should entitle this scenario that," Sol said. "In case we refer back to it later."

"'Guard Dick,'" Lull said as they both laughed. "I like it."

"I want to ask you something that's been bugging me," Sol said.

"We can do anal," Lull offered.

"Okay. B—What?" Sol said.

"I'm joking," Lull said. "You'd break my ass with that cock."

"So maybe later?" Sol said.

Lull laughed more. With a touch of anxiety.

"_Maybe_," Lull said. Speaking to his cock she added, "'Maybe' is not a yes."

"Also not a definite no," Sol said, also to his own cock.

More laughs.

"I'm joking," Sol said. "Entirely. I'm not one of those men who's always trying to put it in your butt. No means no, yes means yes."

"Good," Lull said. "I'm not _against _anal. Just don't you obsess about it."

"Agreed," Sol said. For an instant Lull looked at him as if he'd turned into a completely different person while she blinked.

"Right," Lull said. "What were you going to say?"

"What?" Sol said, joking but deadpan.

"What was bothering you?" Lull said, either not noticing the stupid, tiny joke or plowing through it.

"Alcohol," Sol said. "For a few reasons. When we decided to come here together we were both drunk."

"So?" Lull said.

"So, can either of us really decide anything in our cups?" Sol said.

"Sure," Lull said.

"I feel like I've sobered up," Sol said.

"Gods, me too," Lull said. "Either that or I'm _so _much more horny than drunk I can't feel the drink anymore."

"All right," Sol said.

"Does that settle it?" Lull said.

"Almost," Sol said. "I wanted to say earlier—maybe an excessive request—now I have the honor of knowing what you taste like with alcohol on you. I want to know what _just you _taste like."

Lull smiled. "You're so sweet," she said, smiling, touching his shoulder. "I . . . "

"I meant, I wanted to clean my mouth before we start the scenario," Sol said. "Do you . . . care?"

"No," Lull said. "Your breath smells fine. But we can do that if you want. You have to do it too, though."

Sol paused in thought.

"What?" Lull said.

"I still want to do that," Sol said, "but if I were a stereotypical guard, I'd probably taste of mead or ale all the time. Drinking on the job. So maybe we shouldn't, for your immersion."

Lull smiled, saying, "I wouldn't even notice something like that, in the throes of passion. Nor think of it. I'll be too busy . . . enjoying your ministrations." She bit her lip, imagining.

"Very well," Sol said. "Never mind."

"No, we can still do it if you want," Lull said.

"Nah," Sol said. "I'm getting lost in the woods."

"No," Lull said. "Or if you are it's _amazingly _sweet of you." She held his face and kissed him some more. "I love that you're trying—that you're getting into this for me. You're gonna spoil me so badly." She grinned. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Sol said.

"What do you want in return?" Lull said.

"I'm not bartering," he said as if the concept were vulgar, joking. "I want to have fun with you. Let's enjoy each other. It doesn't have to be tit-for-tat."

"But it can be," Lull said, smashing her tits up and together then looking up at him—offering.

They laughed, but Sol had to look away. Too sexy. "Not fair," he said.

"How?" Lull said. "You have those shoulders, and that dick. That's not fair for me to have to see."

"When you put your tits together like that I want to throw you down and fuck you," Sol said. "No foreplay. All animal. It's hard to resist."

Lull enjoyed that very much. She was certain he meant it. She bit her lip and then said in a low voice, "That's naughty." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Give me a kiss."

Sol kissed Lull with a raw tenderness she wasn't ready for. He held her face in one hand and pulled her chest into his with the other. She moaned. He held the kiss longer than he meant to. They started dueling tongues. Then kept dueling for some time. And touching each other.

"Wow, you don't mess around," Lull said afterward.

Sol smiled. "I wanted to try kissing you with urgency. I'm in no rush. I'd be happy only kissing you."

"We have to do my fantasy before we both go mad," she said. "You're a good kisser, Sol. I . . . you make me feel it all the way over my body."

"Thank you," Sol said. "And . . . good." He took a breath, moved his head so he couldn't see any of the skin of her tits or cleavage. "Also, yes, to what you said—we need to get to enacting your fantasy."

"Where were we . . . " Lull said. "So, you'll say something crude, because innocent virgin here's not getting it." She gestured at herself.

"Right," Sol said. "Do you mind if I ask about word use?"

"Everything is permitted," she said on the spot.

"What if I call you 'bitch?' Or something similar," Sol said. "I feel like my character's mean-spirited—wouldn't use nice words."

"Probably wouldn't," Lull said. "I _hope_ you call me names like that. Try to mean it, though, if you say it. If it feels fake you'll take me out of all the encounter we've created."

"What if I say 'cunt?'" Sol said.

"Right here," Lull said, gesturing at hers with a tone of approval.

"That word doesn't offend you?" Sol said.

"Not in bed," Lull said. "As dirty talk. I'll probably—after my character discovers that sex can be really, really fun—be using that word myself. And whatever other words I think of. Like, 'Fuck my little thief cunt.'"

"All right," Sol said, surprised she said such seriously and un-self-consciously but not letting it show as much as he felt it.

"Does the word bother _you__?_" Lull said.

"No," Sol said.

"Good," she said. "Because if I talk dirty I might use it a lot. I want you to say things like that too. Such as, asking me if I like your Guard Dick in my cunt, or my mouth."

"You like dirty talk, I—" he began.

"Yes," she interrupted.

"—presume," he finished.

"Love it," she concluded. "I always want it. Or, assume I do unless I say otherwise. There cannot be _too _much dirty talk. Always. Yes. For this—my fantasy—try to stay in character."

"That's what I meant to ask about," Sol said. "I really want to commit to this sex-pervert guard character, to please you."

"A wise choice," Lull said, smiling.

Sol smiled. "If I do that—I—Solitar—respect you and care about you. You know that, right?"

"I do," Lull said.

"Good," Sol said. "Because I have to _suspend_ that for this, to please you properly. My character—he's sort of a sadist. He's miserable in life, single, not good with women, not wealthy, low status. Probably no real friends. So he derives pleasure from making others suffer—abusing his authority. Goes out of his way to do it. Shit like that. Because it's fun for him."

"You've already thought your character out more than I have," Lull said. She said it approvingly, though.

"I'm trying to make sense of it," Sol said. "I've never wanted to force myself on someone."

"Well, you get points for that, then," Lull said. "The points do nothing."

"I wasn't trying for points," Sol said. "I needed to justify it, even for pretend-fun. Because . . . I don't want to be _too _real, no? Because this person would be horrible. If the scenario really happened, this guard would come in a minute, and you'd feel terrible and used afterward."

"Are you asking something?" Lull said.

"I'm not sure," Sol said. He shrugged. "Warn me if I'm taking it too seriously."

"You are already," Lull said, touching him lovingly.

"Oh," Sol said. "Good to know. Apologies."

"It's fine," Lull said. "You're really _trying_. You want to please me." She smiled. "I adore that. Stay in character—but the point of it all is for you to _fuck_ me, good. You're not on a stage trying to bring the commons to a whole other world."

"Got it," Sol said. "Overthinking. I want you to understand the character isn't me. I fear you won't."

"No, I know, my love," Lull said and kissed him. She held it longer than he expected her to, but it didn't get _too_ deep this time. "I'm _asking_ _you_ to do all this. For me. I get it."

"I do know some guards like this," Sol said. "I don't condone it, or let them get away with anything. But I don't always catch them in the act, and . . . the jarl and Maven don't care. I need you to know, I wouldn't let this happen."

"I do know that," Lull said, then added, " . . . honey-cum." She said it as a term of endearment.

It took Sol a heartbeat to understand, but then he laughed, and Lull along with him. She looked uneasy in anticipation of him laughing. Once he did she relaxed completely. As they laughed together, she kissed him on the cheek.

He kissed her back on her cheek and said, "I love that you're—"

"As naughty as you are?" Lull said.

"Yes," Sol said, smiling. They laughed and embraced and kissed. "I was going to say 'comfortable being as naughty as me,' but that works."

"Fuck, we gotta get this cock in me," Lull said, refocusing. "Set me back on the floor, please, lover?" She wrapped her arms around his neck, preparing.

For an instant he thought she wanted him to dump her on the floor, then he understood what she wanted, took her and lifted her off the table, then let her find her footing. Standing.

"Thank you, good sir," she said, walking toward the bedroom. No walls particularly separated it from the hearth/kitchen or other areas of the house; the floor plan of that level of the house was rather open, so it was more like: she walked toward the house's master bed.

"You're welcome, my lady," he said, turning with her and spanking her ass—lightly, but with enough force to make noise—as he spoke. He watched her move. She liked him looking.

"_Honeycum!_" she said, fake-scoldingly, for the spank.

"Was that okay?" he said.

"That was _more_ than okay," she said. "I love being spanked." She arrived at her destination, a tall but thin wardrobe against a wall by her bed. "Come here."

Inspired to make a filthy joke, also noticing he'd sloppily re-laced his trousers, Sol pulled his cock back out; it was somewhere between flaccid and erect. As he did, and somehow didn't fumble it despite rushing, he said, "Okay, but it might take me a while," and started stroking his cock with one hand, holding his trousers up with the other. He wasn't trying to please himself for real, so he barely touched himself, he was just pretending he misunderstood her words. He figured the motion of his arm was enough for the joke. He took cautious steps toward where Lull had gestured—an area rather than a spot, so not a great cum-target, as per the joke.

Lull turned, saw, felt absolutely scandalized for an instant, then got the joke (saw him giggling) and laughed hard herself. Not quite as hard as he hoped, but harder than he'd expected. Then he noticed she was staring intently at his cock. _Oh, she can get distracted with anatomy too_, he noticed.

"Don't tempt me," Lull said, forcing herself to look away. "It's not easy for me not to jump on that fucking cock and ride you to finish at this instant. I'm attempting to delay gratification for our mutual enjoyment."

Sol halted and put his cock away, then re-did his trousers, saying, "Thank you for the mission statement, my darling, though I understood such already—"

"I'm trying to keep my mind on task!" Lull said. "Rather than on cock."

They laughed.

"I wanna do _so many_ naughty things to you, Solitar," Lull said.

"And I you," Sol said.

"And _with_ you," Lull said, kissing him, touching him. "This—we're gonna have lots of fun tonight."

"Yes, m'lady," Sol said, trousers re-done. He stepped aside her, the tenting of his trousers feeling somehow comically dumb and nice at the same time. He put an arm around Lull's waist and nuzzled into her ear.

She hummed approval.

She gestured: "So here's my wardrobe."

"That's what that is?" Sol said. "I thought it was a secret entrance to the Thieves' Guild. Or a . . . dragon," Sol mumbled with his lips very close to Lull's ear. He tried to sound surprised, as he joked, but mostly became distracted—by her proximity, her warmth, her exposed skin, her naked neck begging for his mouth's attention.

She wobbled and giggled and leaned on him. "Funny," she said awkwardly. She loved how close he was.

He was far too distracted. He held her close, and she leaned even closer, and put an arm around his shoulders, but maintained just enough distance for herself to stay focused.

"Do you want me to wear the standard issue Rift guard uniform?" Sol said.

"Yes, please," she said, leaning forward—he went with it and they walked, clumsily, as one to her wardrobe.

"Do you have one?" he said.

"Of course I do," she said like he should've known.

"How'd you get it?" he said.

"I'm thane, I does what I wants," she said.

"Noted," he said.

She giggled. She looked at him—he was smiling. She feared he'd be angry or feel betrayed somehow that she'd have a Rift guard uniform. He didn't seem to mind it.

She picked his outfit for him; she had several full sets of the typical Rift guard issue loadout, all the clothing too small for him in height if not width. "I'll make it work," he assured her. She had the armour too, which fit similarly. None of the closed helms were big enough for his head. "Fuck," Lull said, displeased, when she noticed. "I want you to take it off before long, but you _have to _start with it on."

"Completes the ensemble," Sol said. "Balimund's a personal friend; if you're all right with waiting he could probably just make me one. Or perhaps fit one of these for me."

"How long would any of that take, a week? A moon?" Lull said. "No thanks. Maybe if you wore a hood . . . "

"Are you kidding, these pieces'a shit?" Sol said of one of the closed helms. "He could do either of those things in about five minutes. Flat."

Lull got an idea. "Talos's beard, _you're _a guard! Don't you have one of these of your own?" She gestured with one of the too-small closed helms. She was holding it between her tits. He loved that. Sol stared. He wanted to replace the helm with his cock for a few minutes, and then fuck her silly.

"Yeah, but in the barracks in Mistveil Keep," Sol said, dully, watching the helm between her tits. "With the crowds at this time of night it might be faster to pay Balimund to make a new one."

"He'd charge you for that?" Lull said. She removed the helm from her tits.

"Well, no," Sol said. "But I'd cover the cost, at least."

"Is it all right if I bring up how we met a few weeks ago?" Lull said.

"Sure, I won," he said. He appreciated her sensitivity.

She scoffed and slapped his still-erect cock, lightly, on the shaft, laughing all the while, and said, "Didn't you offer to _make_ me a glass dagger?"

"I _did_ make you a glass dagger," he said. A pause. "Oh, yes, I know how to smith as well."

They laughed. Lull pretended to collapse into his chest, but only let her head droop forward into him. She put one of the guard-issue closed helms in his free hand, saying, "I think we have all the materials to make one here. It's steel, right? I know that's easier to work with than glass."

"Less tetchy, anyway," Sol said, considering it. "Iron."

"Gods dammit I just want you inside me _right now_," she said.

"There's nothing keeping us—" he began.

She smashed a finger against his lips and said, "Don't you take my special fantasy from me, honeycum!"

They both laughed. She kissed him several times. He kissed her several times.

"Fuck," Sol said. "We can't skip the helm. I have a plan: I'll _run_ to Mistveil Keep and get the one I have that I never use—"

"Can I come with?" she said.

"Us _both_ coming, same time? I'd love that," he said.

"You know what I meant, pervy man," she said, then giggled. She leaned into him, specifically to make sure he felt her tits pressing into him.

"I want you to come—sorry—run with me, but to save time, would you like to set up this place?" he said. "Dig up the candlestick, arrange anything else you'd like to, set the mood. I'll be fast, so if we're lucky I might get back as you're finishing."

"Is this helm thing a ruse so you can jerk off before we have sex, to last longer?" Lull said, joking. He was so impressed that she got it all out in one breath he nearly forgot to laugh.

"Um," he said, pausing. "No?" He tried to make the word ring as falsely as possible.

She looked at him, kidding, with an expression of, "Not convinced."

They broke down into laughter.

"But seriously," he said after they calmed, "Do you want to do that?"

"We should," she said. "For sex."

"For sex!" he said. "I don't wish to stop touching you for the rest of the night, yet . . . I want to make your fantasy work."

"You already are, love," she said, kissing him. A big, sweet wet smack. "I don't want to let you leave—"

"But you do want to watch me go," he interrupted.

They laughed.

"Go get your helm," she said, pointing a finger in the direction of Mistveil Keep. "I desire the full costume!"

He corrected where she was pointing. He had a very strong sense of direction. She giggled. "I desire your pussy!" he said once he'd re-aimed her.

She bit her lip and spanked him and said, "Go." He ran off. Lull had never seen someone move so fast. Not without being clubbed into Aetherius by a giant of Skyrim, anyhow. He called, "Be right back—for that ass!" as he left.

Solitar was back in two minutes, at which time Tluldir was still laughing from the manner of his exit, and also still arranging her home for her fantasy. She didn't move any furniture, but it had to be _right_.

He tried sneaking up on her—he hadn't had the presence of mind to lock the city-side-door of her house behind him, and neither had she—and was shocked when it worked. She was making minute adjustments to where, on her master bed's end table, her character's quarry would be. It was an unusually penile candlestick, Sol noticed, black—onyx—and inlaid with red rubies, presumably standing in for engorged veins and arteries and with a rather bulbous head for candles to—ouch—be stuck in, and a correspondingly testicular base. Sol didn't even want to know what it was worth, in the legitimate erotic furniture market or through a fence. He was confident Lull had stolen it in a real-world scenario much like the wonderfully dubiously-consenting but also naughty and fun fantasy they were about to realize and indulge in. The penis portion of the candlestick was about seven inches long but disproportionately thin.

"That's a fire hazard," Sol said. Lull flinched and yelped.

Lull had been kneeling comfortably by the end table; when he spoke, one of her legs bolted upright, but the other didn't, so she simply fell over. "Solitar! You naughty—!" she said in fake anger.

"I'm so sorry!" he said, rushing to help her stand, knowing she'd need no help. "I didn't think I'd be able to sneak up on you! The door wasn't locked."

"Oh, _relax_, love," Lull said, soothing. "Take a few steps back, I wanted to do a thing when you returned, with my dick." She looked toward his crotch.

"Okay," Sol said, backing up. "It's your dick now?"

"You heard," she said, getting back to her knelt before-position. She pointed at his crotch—his dick wasn't hard anymore; probably something about blood circulation from the running—and said, "That dick is _mine_ now." She looked back up to his eyes. "Okay, stay there, but take a couple slow steps toward me. That I can hear." She rotated, to aim her ass at him.

He took a few slow thudding steps.

She shot her ass all the way up—Sol saw it jiggle, which was impressive—but stood her top half slowly, and only after her ass. More like peeled upward.

It was hokey and stupid and mostly for his visual enjoyment. Sol's cock started to refill with blood. He felt it surge. He giggled, but also truly allowed himself to enjoy it. Normally such things' absurdity would distract him from enjoying them.

"Oh my," Sol said toward the end of the show. "Ten out of ten."

"What?" Lull said.

"I'm rating your performance," he said. "And poise, and ass . . . ness. I give it full marks."

"Thank you," she said, curtsying.

"I know this doesn't matter—it's _you_ I like, and want to fuck, not your body, really, and you didn't really choose it—but still, you're _sexy,_ my love," Sol said. He was happy she let him get the whole thought out, start-and-stop as it was. He noticed his utterance of "my love" after it came out.

"Thank you, my love," Lull said. He'd been walking up to her; she received him very warmly. A big hug, several kisses, then what Sol could describe only as a jug hug; she put his head between her tits then used her tits as devices—manipulated them with her hands—and hugged his head with her tits. Odd. Goofy. Sexy, somehow. Kind of. He loved it. "Thank you for getting the helm. Yours. I hope I've been clear about this—even if you'd outright said no to my elaborate fantasy—which you're marvelous for saying yes to—you'd still be getting laid tonight. So, I know you sort of ran out and got your helm to get laid, but—" Sol tried to interrupt but she didn't let him. Then he felt shitty for wanting to cut in. "You're gettin' pussy tonight, costume or no. Fantasy indulgence, or no. You know that, right?"

"I do," he said.

"Thank you for letting me make peace with that," she said, smiling self-consciously. "You were going to say?"

"A distinction," he said. "Yes, this looks like it's really happening—but I ran out for my stupid helm because I want to make _you _feel good—satisfied, happy, loved—not to assure that I'd get my wick dipped."

Lull smiled the whole time he spoke. "Good," she said. "I'm . . . _very_ happy to hear that. I've never heard that phrase before."

"Wick?" Sol said.

"Sure, _that_ _phrase_," Lull said.

"I don't find candle-making sexy, but I seem to hear people use that phrase a lot," he said.

"Candle _light _is sexy," she said.

"The spell?" he said.

"No, you stupid, the tiny fires," she said.

They both laughed.

"Sometimes I like hot wax, too," Lull said. Sol did his best to burn that into his brain's permanent memory. She changed the subject: "Did you say you don't eat red meat?"

"No," Sol said. "I don't think so. I do occasionally. Only . . . I spent a very long time, in my youth, in Valenwood. Their customs became habits for me. Out of politeness more than philosophical agreement. So for a long time I _very much_ ate red meat. I've been trying to live more like Summurset elves lately, lots of greens. So most times I don't _think _to eat meat. Unless by 'red meat' you mean pussy. I'd eat that every day and never get tired of it."

"You may be the world's greatest lover," Lull said, facetious.

"Someday, I hope," Sol said. "For now that title belongs to . . . " He trailed off.

"Oh? Who's it belong to, Sol?" she prodded.

Sol blurted out the first words he thought of: "Cock . . . Cockutron. Lord Cockutron, of . . . High Rock, naturally."

"It sounds like you just made that name up, my love," Sol said, running a hand through his hair. He put his arms around her waist.

"Nope," Sol said. "I definitely did not. He's very famous, you know, Lord Cockutron."

"I'll have to take your word for it," she said.

"You should," he said, with a joking overabundance of confidence. "For I have . . . traveled much. And . . . You're about to get a world-class cocking."

Lull could endure no more, and exploded into laughter. She trusted Sol to keep her from falling. Which he did. She eventually bit into his shoulder to relieve some of the sexual tension she felt, saying, "Your funniness is _so _sexy."

"Is that a word?" he said, stroking her hair. Which was the color of copper—unusual for a Redguard.

"No," she said into his neck, kissing.

He pulled her back up before she could really get into it.

"We've really gotta fuck," Sol said. "Indulge in fantasy, I mean. Are you familiar with the concept of safe words?"

"Never heard of it," she said.

"The idea is . . . what if we're doing this _play _of sex-pervert guard forcing himself on to you, into you—" Lull bit her lip. Her eyes shimmered. "What if I get too rough, and hurt you? What if it's just not working for you? Or you want me to stop, for any reason. Do you want me to stop, for real, if you simply say 'No?'"

"_Gods _no," she said. "I'm going to say 'No' a lot and it _never_ means stop. Me loving it and pretending _not_ to want it is a big part of the fantasy for me. I want to _pretend_ I don't want it. Because people judge women for wanting or enjoying sex, or getting fucked. Call us sluts. So . . . But not men, so you can just do whatever. And we're not married. Our characters—roles—certainly wouldn't be. So if it all really happened I'd have to protest. Well, I would if it _really _happened, but . . . fantasy. Just do what I want. And also read my mind."

They laughed.

"Okay. And, I'll try," Sol said, then acted like he was concentrating really hard and touched a finger to one of his temples, as if he were trying to read her mind.

"Want am I thinking about right now?" Lull said.

"Cum," he said, sounding certain.

"Lucky guess," she said, and they laughed more. "Best two of three?"

"Okay," he said and re-"focused." "You're thinking . . . pussy is great."

As he began saying "pussy," she said, "Guard cock."

"Damn," Sol said. "I give up."

"Okay," Lull said.

"To be sure I understand," Sol said: "Once we start playing out our roles, if you say no, it's you saying it in-character. So your virgin _character_ might mean it, even if _you_ don't."

"Exactly right," she said.

"We need something—a phrase you can say, or a word, that you'd never say normally during sex, which means you're not okay, or want me to stop, or whatever. Or simply need a pee break," he said.

"Full disclosure: I _am_ okay with whatever," she said darkly, "but . . . yes. That's a brilliant idea. An emergency halt phrase."

"I didn't invent the idea," he said. "What's something you'd never say during sex?"

"'Stop,'" she said. They laughed.

"Dammit, woman," he dead over their mutual laughter, "your character _doesn't_ want it. She would probably say 'stop' at some point. I daresay, mayhap several."

"I got it," she said. "If I _ever _really want you to stop, which I won't, or if you go too far—which you can't, but if you do—I will say: '_Stealing is bad_.'"

"Stealing _is _bad," he said. "That's a truism."

They laughed.

"I disagree," she said.

They kept laughing.

"I know," he said.

"Exactly. So you know I'd never say that," she said.

"Yes," he said begrudgingly. "You'd never agree with the clearly-objective fact that stealing is bad."

He was clearly kidding. "Shut up," she said, smacking his belly. She was very pleased that his flesh didn't yield to her jokey, light blow. He saw it coming and flexed. Which was maybe cheating. So he didn't give himself full permission to enjoy the delight he saw on her face and in her eyes.

Sol said, "Let's do a partial dry run."

"No," Lull said.

"Why not?" Sol said.

"I'm already wet!" Lull said, smiling, already pleased with him. "I _can't_ do it dry."

"Fair," he said. "Sexy." Lull smiled more, and curtsied at the acknowledgement.

Sol shrugged like, "What do I do now?"

"Grab one of my tits," Lull said.

He did so. His hand didn't stay still there, couldn't, but it didn't move much, either.

She inhaled sharply and smiled and arched her back slightly and pushed into Sol. "I'm going to have you kiss me," she said. "As part of this practice. Kiss me, then keep kissing over my face. I'll say 'no,' but I want us to pretend to be our characters. Barely. So _when _I say 'no,' don't stop. I—at least this time I want to test me saying no, but then you keep going. Un—" He quasi-accidentally brushed a finger over her nipple and she emitted a lovely part-sigh part-moan. "Understand?" she concluded.

"I understand," Sol said. "I'm a mite uncomfortable with it—" He squeezed her tit. "—but I'll try it all for you. To please you. Because you ask for it, and because I know pleasing you will please me." He let go of her tit.

Lull bit her lip, leaning too far forward, expecting his hand not to leave her tit. "Be adventurous for me," she said. "I know I'll enjoy it. I'm already _very_ excited about it. This. I'll make it worth your while. I promise."

"I'll be adventurous," Sol said. "Feel free to suggest things, too. For me to do. Even if it's cheesy fake reverse-psychology like 'Don't you dare fuck my pussy harder!,' or whatever else you want." Lull laughed. "I'd be adventurous just for you. I don't want you to . . . repay me, or promise anything, or feel you have to. You won't owe me anything."

"You're too sweet, love," Lull said, putting her hand on his face, caressing. "To test you I'll say, 'No.' I may make myself mean it a little, so you know what that sounds like. Conditioning. Because eventually when we do it for real, it'll sound like I really mean it. But I won't. That's me getting into it, as I want to. So don't stop if I say no."

"This practice seems very elaborate," Sol said.

Lull smiled. "I'd rather front-load it like this than go for it, for real, and have to pause or stop to explain those things. That would be so . . . not sexy. I believe for both of us. Anyway I'm worth it!" she asserted in one breath.

"Yes you are," Sol said. "Of course you are. Not that you need me to say it. It's . . . Practice will help me. I'm making fun of how long _I _took to understand."

"Don't, you're fine," Lull said, and kissed him on the cheek her hand wasn't on, then released him and put one of his hands on one of her tits again. "Get ready," she said. "I'll say, 'Kiss me.' Do it, but then please _keep_ kissing me, my face. I'll try to say 'no' a few times. Don't stop."

"Okay," Sol said.

"Eventually, I'll say . . . our passphrase that means I _actually_ want you to stop," she said. "I won't even say it now, so you—and I—don't become inured to it. That thing I'd never say of stealing. Got it?"

"Got it," he said. "If I hear _you_ say, 'Stealing is bad'—something that you'd never say, in any other context—_that_ means 'stop.' So if I don't hear—if you don't say that, it means you're kind of passively saying, 'Keep going?'"

"Right," she said. "And it _does _mean that, not sort-of. I don't want to say 'yes' or 'no' every time you push your cock into me."

"If I . . . tell me 'yes' occasionally. Somehow. For example, maybe I have the right approach and temperament, but something I do hurts, or hurts too much, or you get a leg cramp, or you need a break, or . . . whatever. I don't believe that the lack of a 'no' is the same as a 'yes.'"

"That's reasonable," Lull said. "You can ask me things as a question, to let me approve or not. Uh—for example: I _love _doggy style. But I may be inspired—while we fuck for real, in my fantasy—to pretend I don't want it. Actually—I want you to be sort of rough. So maybe you have me suck your cock, then you want to get into doggy, so you tell me to get on all fours. I might say 'no' or just sit down obstinately. That means I want you to . . . force me into position. So then mayhap you could throw me on the bed, or bend me over the hearth table or the like—then you could say, 'You wanted this, didn't you?' or however you'd say it. So then my character's inner slut can come out and I'll try to sound ashamed and admit, 'Yes,'" she said. "I think you'll hear how much I enjoy it in that yes. Does that sound reasonable to you?"

"Sure," Sol said. "Thank you."

"I'm . . . I sincerely want this to be great for both of us," Lull said. "I already feel safe with you. But it doesn't hurt to be sure. So, I'm happy to try to add cues for you that I like what you're doing. I simply—I know it's selfish, but for the fantasy to work for me, I need you to just _do _things, not to ask permission. I'm giving you permission for _everything_ right now. Except anal, or anything with blood or animals. I don't want that."

"Understood," Sol said. "And you can revoke that permission anytime you want. By saying the secret phrase that you'd never normally say."

"Right," Lull said. "I want your character to be just _uninterested _in my ass. Well, my asshole. Are you all right with that? I don't want your character to want to penetrate it. Of course I don't want you to ignore the whole thing. Just don't fuck me in it. I don't know why; that's the idea as it came to me." Lull stayed quite composed the whole time, but her words didn't come out evenly; she was still enjoying his holding one of her tits, her heart was still racing, her breathing still quick. Despite his unease with the play-scenario, her excitement still fueled his. "You can fuck me anyplace else, though—between my tits, or my thighs, even my armpits."

"Okay," Sol said.

"I'll try to give you an abundance of nonverbal cues as well, such as nodding assent or pulling you closer. But . . . don't make me make them obvious. Simply do not ask my permission, for anything," she said, poking his chest between each word of the last sentence.

"Understood," Sol said. "I need to hear a very clear yes to this: Are you _sure_ you want to do this? You—"

"Yes," Lull said.

"Good," Sol said. "You _want _us to pretend that I'm forcing myself on you?"

"Absolutely yes, I do," she said. "This is going to be _so _wonderful, Sol. I trust you. Truly. Do you trust me?" She took his free hand in both of hers, which pushed her tits together. Sol clearly looked at her cleavage, but managed not to stare.

"I trust you, Lull," Sol didn't hesitate to say.

Lull kissed him on the mouth, celebrating. "Excellent."

Sol kissed her back. "You can adjust me at any time, too—faster, slower, harder, deeper, anything," he said. "Okay?"

"Okay," she said, smiling. She kissed him again.

Lull smiled broadly, and closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She forced his hand already on her tit to hold it even tighter.

"Let's practice," Lull said. "Ready?"

"Ready," Sol said.

She told him, "Kiss me."

He did.

Between starting to move and his lips reaching hers, it occurred to him she asked for some forcefulness, so he made sure to kiss her slightly harder than he really wanted to. He did it with an open mouth; hers was parted just enough for a breath of surprise from her to go into his mouth before she started breathing—labored—through her nose.

He made sure to go rough on her tit, though only a little, because he really didn't know her sensitivity and they weren't even beginning yet. As he squeezed one of her tits, he pushed his tongue between her lips. He'd waited too long to do it—her mouth was nearly as wide-open as his by the time he shoved his tongue in. He'd meant to push her lips apart. He used his other hand to grab her other tit, to compensate. She moaned loudly at that, which caught him off-guard—she enjoyed all these things. He'd been starting to worry that he was advancing either too quickly or too forcefully. He was doing fine. She asked him for rough—he wanted to give her rough, but not harsh; more than enough, but not too much.

Sol moved a hand from one of Lull's lovely tits to her face and held her and they both got very much into the kiss, which must have gone on for at least a minute before Sol remembered to break it and kiss around her face. He wanted to pull her into him via her tits but that didn't seem forceful enough, somehow, and he was supposed to be forcing himself on her, so he moved his hand from her face to in her hair, at the back of her head. Then he noticed he was doing it too gently, moved the hand to the back of her neck and got mildly insistent, pulling and keeping her extremely close to him. All the while, he kissed everywhere around her neck, pulled her roughly rather than letting her stay still and doing all the moving himself, and she kept getting hotter, breathing harder, sighing, moaning. She smiled broadly throughout, occasionally watching him, mostly keeping her eyes closed—trusting him. She was happy.

He squeezed, hard, the tit of hers he still had a grip on. She moaned. She said, "No." She didn't mean it at all. Sol still reflexively released her tit, but then remembered their uncomfortably—for him, still, somewhat—unique contrived scenario and switched his hand to her other tit—Lull's eyes opened; she watched him—and squeezed her other tit even harder than he just had the first. He couldn't help looking at her tits as he did it—looking down; not backing away from Lull's face in the least, staying close enough to her to kiss her constantly.

"Good," she whispered, moaning at the squeeze. He guessed at where that tit's nipple was and rubbed over the area with his thumb.

He resumed kissing over her face, momentarily. He kissed, with a certain lingering quality, by one of her eyes and she murmured something he couldn't understand, then he pulled her against him harder by the back of her neck and squeezed her tit hard again, and this dangerous low groan issued from her throat somewhere between deep heavy breaths.

Sol embraced inspiration and kissed her on the lips, a tease—her mouth was already agape, and he fit his to hers, and she put her tongue in his mouth at once, and he licked along her tongue briefly but then broke away—then low on her cheeks, then around her jaw, then under her jaw, lower, lower, then her neck. Lull hadn't held still for any of this but she became positively squirmy, much more animated, when his lips met her neck. Sometimes it wasn't only his lips; sometimes it was his tongue, and teeth, or all three.

A few more kisses then he got another "No" from Lull, which he ignored. One of her hands—which he'd had no awareness of for the last few minutes—came to rest on his thigh. _Dangerous_, he thought. It was the leg of his which his erect cock wasn't running along, but she still put her hand close to where his legs met. His own heartbeat seemed to double. Lull's hand on his thigh slid upward and he groaned at the attention more than the touch itself. She stroked his thigh. Her other hand went to the back of his head, or already was there and he hadn't noticed; regardless, when he went to back up to kiss another part of her neck, she used her hand on his head to keep him from backing away from her neck, or going any higher on her body, and she wasn't gentle about it. The first time he noticed the hand he was going from one far edge of the front of her neck to the opposite side but slightly further back, and she both surprised him by getting actively involved with something other than her mouth and by pulling him into her so forcefully that she smashed his face into her. If he'd thought to resist that pull, he wouldn't have smashed anything. He settled for nibbling at a tiny spot of her neck near the middle. She barely let up, pulling him against her and keeping him there. He fought against her to plant the kiss he'd meant to, but he didn't go as far back to place it as he'd intended. He moved around and kissed very differently at random a few more times, then kissed softly—in the same instant squeezing her tit hard, pulling her into him with some force—around her neck until he found her pulse, let himself feel it. He kissed there, then sucked at the spot.

"_No_," Lull moaned, sounding ecstatic. She kept getting louder. Sol loved it. He kept getting more aroused. It was lovely. Then Lull moaned again—he kept sucking—and said under her breath, "_Yes_,Sol." There was a threatening edge to it, somehow. As if she was considering doing away with what felt like a few hours of talking through their entire "our first time has to be my guard-and-lawbreaker coercion scenario," hiking up her skirt, ripping open his trousers if he hadn't by then, shoving his cock inside of her pussy and fucking him hard until she came, until he submitted to her in some way. Also, whatever she might've been thinking, that it was challenging for her to hold back to do this practice-test.

Sol removed his hand from the back of her neck and brought it down—he held both of her tits. They were marvelous. He squeezed both hard, usually not at the same time, and enjoyed himself, got to know her tits better. Sometimes he held one lightly, or squeezed gently. Hard and soft. Too bad he couldn't see them well, when he could see them at all. His head was too busy with kissing her even to glance down for his own pleasure.

As he used both hands on her tits, he stopped suckling at her pulse on her neck and resumed kissing different places on her neck in different ways.

"No," she said again, like a bad stage actor—no heart or force to it.

Sol let one of her tits go briefly to pull it back out from under her clothes. She enjoyed that very much. She kept getting hotter. He kept getting her hotter. He found her newly-exposed tit's nipple.

Lull gasped.

She let him go on like that for a long time. In retrospect, to Sol it felt like—realistically—fifteen minutes. Perhaps longer. She just kept getting hotter—louder, more turned on, more animated; breathing harder and more unevenly and more deeply. So did Sol. He got more in-tune with her body by the second.

She said "no" occasionally, but never that stealing was bad.

Lull abruptly seemed agitated. After a moment of bewilderment, Sol recognized: She was close to coming. By all the gods, he was doing _much_ better than he'd thought he was. He had both of her tits out—she and Sol were both still fully-clothed; he'd pulled her tits up and over her low neckline—and she grabbed one of his arms. He thought he'd done something majorly wrong. No—she brought his arm to her pussy.

Sol had no recollection of when, but at some time he and Lull had moved to the dining table in her house's hearth and kitchen area, and he'd pulled out a chair and sat on it, then Lull had sat on him. More like around him, with her legs spread apart, bent at the knees, her feet behind her and hooked inside of his thighs, her knees (he assumed) uncomfortably against the chair's back or nearly so, locking him down in the chair.

Lull put her mouth just short of _into_ one of his ears to say, "Touch me."

Sol figured out what parts of her pussy were where with his fingers—his own breath hitched, and she seemed not to breathe at all for those few seconds. The entire area was wet—she wore some form of small clothes, he guessed linen, but their crotch was soaked. Which overjoyed him. He stroked along her pussy's outer lips, upward, two fingers on each side lightly, and she gasped, then moaned with a certain pregnancy, as if she were about to shed tears of joy. He suggested at touching her clitoris but didn't—went carefully around it, short of it—and she gasped again and spasmed into him, throwing her head back—out of kissing range, unfortunately—and bucking into his hand. He didn't stop.

She draped herself about him, one hand of his caressing her pussy, his other hand tormenting one of her nipples. She bit at his shoulder through his clothes, panted hot breaths into his neck. He felt his cock throb. "_My neck_," she moaned, whispering.

He started high to mess with her—he laid a kiss on her cheek—but she didn't like that, and said, "No," meaning it for the first time; "My _neck_," she corrected.

He obliged.

And kept rubbing around her pussy.

Then went back up to her face, again joking with her.

"Tease," she said, loving it all but feigning anger, barely finding the breath to form the word.

"Black," he said, but kissed his way back down to her neck as he said further, "called-the-kettle-the-pot." He touched her in some manner with his mouth between each word, kissing or licking or nibbling or whatever else he thought of.

Lull took a moment to process what he'd said, giggled, and then Sol went after her pleasure in force: kissing and sucking and licking and biting around her neck, working one of her tits and often its nipple with one hand, and finally working her pussy earnestly with his other hand—sometimes stroking along the outer lips, sometimes the inner lips, sometimes with one finger only on one side, sometimes with one on each side, sometimes going where the lips met with one finger, sometimes threatening to push a finger in even with her smallclothes still separating his finger from her flesh, sometimes acting like he would push the cloth-lost-in-moisture aside but not doing it, and eventually doing it but still not pushing a finger inside of her. Touching her all over constantly, whatever he did, in several places. Not constantly, he'd focus on her clitoris, or rather mostly around it. When she used a hand to put his finger directly on her clitoris—no cloth between, as it was out of the way, though awkwardly still on her body—he went with it. He should've just gone for it on his own initiative but wasn't sure about her clitoral sensitivity. Really what he should've done was ask her about it out loud even before the practice-test began.

She went wild; her head fell back (but he still managed to get his mouth to her neck), she screamed, she came.

Her orgasm seemed to course through her body for at least two minutes. It felt, to Sol, like an incredibly long time.

He _couldn't_ be that good, he told himself. No, of course he wasn't on his own—he wasn't all on his own; he was in the process of indulging a fantasy she'd apparently trusted with no one but him, and been thinking about a lot lately. She was getting off on his skill, some, but probably equally as powerfully—if not much more so—on how he wanted to act out her fantasy with her and indulge her, that he was doing this simply to prepare for The Big Play which hadn't even begun yet, that he got involved with it.

He resisted the typical urge to go at her faster or harder or otherwise differently, suppressed it; he kept doing exactly what he had been before she started to come for the entirety of her orgasm, because she hadn't told him to change anything.

Lull's orgasm subsided, eventually. She had him lessen everything he was doing but not stop any of it. Instead of worrying at her nipples, she had his hand on her tit just hold it. He let himself enjoy doing so. She had him kiss her lightly, sweetly. She steered him away from her clit, but not her pussy.

When she seemed almost entirely calm, she said, "Stealing is bad."

Solitar stopped doing anything to Tluldir. Except watching her. She had him pinned on the chair, beneath her, or he would've taken a step or two away despite very strongly wanting to do nothing of the sort. What he wanted to do most was rip his trousers open and sheath his cock brutally in her pussy, dump her backward on the table and fuck her hard until he exploded with what would surely be roughly the entire volume of Lake Honrich's worth of cum inside of her.

She was surprised at his response, or responsiveness. She must have thought he wasn't paying attention. Well, he'd had a delayed response earlier. And even if he hadn't, it wasn't as if she were in the wrong at all. She was tremendous. He could only hope _he _hadn't done something wrong, or badly. Lull yelped at the cessation of his physical attentions and fell into him. Not as a joke, like to be cute, but genuinely lost her balance, and as a result all her weight fell against him. He used his body to catch her, and supplemented it with his arms rather than risk her falling. He wouldn't fail her now.

Lull laughed hard, embracing him. He embraced her in kind.

"That was _very_ good," Lull said, sounding surprised, loving all this. She sat up, ecstatic, breathing hard but recovering. "And we still have clothes on!" She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and neck. Still laughing.

"We're not even horizontal," Sol said.

They laughed.

They kissed.

She embosomed him again—leaned him down into her chest, pushed his head between her tits with both hands, kissed his head.

"I'm proud of you, Sol," she said.

"Okay," he said, as she let him resurface for air, grabbing a handful of her ass with both his hands, then thinking better of it and holding her by her waist. He took one of her hands and kissed it. "Did I pass the test?"

"Gods yes," Lull said. "More like practice. For both of us. But yes. That—you were above and beyond successful, my darling. A delightful . . . demonstration." She looked over his body, entangled with hers, his cock still hard. She reminded him of it by having let her weight rest on him, rather than on the chair, her body hovering above him so he could access her pussy better; now she sat on him, didn't hold herself up. "I want to suck your cock."

Sol shook his head no. "It'll be more fun to hold off."

"For you, maybe," Lull said. "No, I _require_ to suck your cock."

"Would—Do you enjoy it?" Sol said.

"Sucking cock?" Lull said. She clearly enjoyed the act of saying it. "_Fuck_ yes, I do. I've told you this before, haven't I? Do you feel threatened by it?"

Sol glared at her. "I don't feel threatened by anything. Except magic, sometimes. No, I'm concerned I wouldn't last long. I don't want to disappoint you. I spoke truly before—I'm tempted; of course I want it. It's for that reason I choose to delay gratification, as you are."

"Because _you _want it, you deny it?" Lull said, pointing at him.

" . . . Yes," Sol said. "I don't intend to let myself get selfish."

"You're an odd elf," Lull said.

"So they say," Sol said.

"You're gonna drive me so wild," she said.

"Good," he said, and slapped her ass.

She bit her lip, genuinely, and closed her eyes and sighed and leaned into him. "You have better self-control than I," she said.

Evenly, but not believing it, he said, "Yes I do." He didn't mean it.

She giggled, then looked him in the eyes and held his face, laughing—happy and excited. She kissed him. "You'll do just fine." She raised herself on her knees to grab at his cock through his trousers. She looked at his cock—all she could see was a raised ridge—and said to it, "You'll do fine, too." She found the head and rubbed her thumb over it like encouragement.

Sol sighed and said, "Tease."

Lull winked.

They both went to kiss each other at the same time.

After a brief, sloppy kiss, Lull went limp on Sol for a moment—rested her head on his shoulder, sat down on him—and paused, maybe meditating, centered herself, took a deep breath.

"Sol," she said into his chest.

"Yes, Lull," he said, stroking her back.

"It's taking all my strength not to pounce on you. But—I really do want this first time to be special. I've never felt safe enough to . . . directly try one of my fantasies with someone, as with all this pretend-thief safety-passphrase intricacy. I haven't wanted to try one of my ideas out so soon, before, with any lover. So—let's go for it, yeah?"

"I'm ready," Sol said. "Yeah."

"I'll put my obvious Guild armour on," she said. "Will you put the full guard uniform on for me, please?"

"I will," he said. But he couldn't get up freely with her atop him.

"Not to spoil the surprise, but . . . neither of us should be wearing our costumes for long," she said.

He smiled and kissed her on the cheek—or, he went to. When she saw where he was going, she rotated her head to meet his lips with hers. They giggled. He went to hold the kiss—for minutes, perhaps—but she broke it off.

"That was a dirty trick," he said, of her turning her head before he could kiss her cheek, smiling broadly.

"You should see the things I'll do naked," she said, also smiling broadly.

"Scandalous!" he said.

They laughed.

"Remember the danger phrase: 'Stealing is bad,'" Lull said.

To burn the reflex into his memory, when he heard the word "stealing" leave her big soft lips he ignored all other sensory input but her voice, and once he confirmed the rest of the phrase, he surrendered his contact with her entirely. She was still perched atop him; he could put no more space between them without throwing her off.

"Well done, my love," she said. "Now get your hands back on me!"

He did, both to her hips. "If you say that, I'll stop whatever I'm doing," he said. "At once."

"Yes," she said.

"I'll want to be kissing you a lot—" he began.

"A wise choice," she interjected.

"The lady spake true," he said. She smiled. He went on, "I meant to ask: If I'm ever kissing you and you want me to stop that, or everything I might be doing, you should . . . turn your head, or stop participating, I suppose?"

"I'll never not want to kiss you," she said and kissed him briefly, "but all right. If, for whatever reason, I want you to stop during a moment of lip-lock, I'll either partake—no, I mean, I'll either render myself inactive—or turn my head away, or otherwise suspend the kiss."

"All right," he said.

"But if I merely say 'no' or 'don't' or 'I can't take all that cock' . . . " she said.

They laughed. During it he said, "Then you _don't _want me to stop."

"Exactly right," she said.

"What if I'm doing just a tip-top job of ravishing you, but you want me to adjust something slightly?" he said.

"I'll try to do that without saying anything," she said. "A hand to your chest, or some such. We'll figure it out."

"Okay," he said.

There was a silence. Sol held Lull, and dragged a hand up and down one of her thighs' outsides, over her clothing. He didn't speak, though, because he kept thinking she was about to. For her part, she held him close and stayed still, except for breathing.

"I can't move with you on me," Sol said.

"Maybe you should do something about it," Lull said.

Sol wrapped an arm around her to keep her from falling, and stood with her in tow. She felt so light, however thicc, that she seemed to weigh nothing. She held her pose as if she were still sitting; she didn't even move her legs.

"Stand, please," he said, wanting that but also mostly joking as he said it.

"No," Lull said, otherwise not moving. "You'll have to deposit me on the bed."

"I'll _deposit_ in your fuckin' _pussy_," Sol threatened—she laughed, enjoying the threat—but he walked to Lull's master bed, only a few steps away, nonetheless.

He didn't deposit her onto the bed nicely so much as throw her onto it. She started snickering as he neared the bed. When her threw her down, in a quick motion, she screamed in ebullient delight, surprised, but also reveling, laughing hard, calling out his name.

Sol immediately turned back to retrieve his dumb watchperson-issue closed helm, from . . . wherever he'd set it, because he thought somehow if he didn't watch her hit the bed the act of his throwing her down on it would be funnier. That seemed to work. When he turned and looked away, for his issue helm, he heard Lull squeal with laughter. She called out, "No, Solitar, don't leave!," joking. He located the helm—it was on the floor against the wall of the bedroom area, under a mounted bear's head. He didn't recall either of them setting it there. He went to it. Lull continued, "All the plants will die!"

Sol chuckled and looked back to her—she was sitting plainly, practically, and clearly hadn't expected him to look.

He picked up his helm. The rest of his—no, Lull's—issued Rift watchperson kit was in a pile by Lull's bed, toward the wardrobe. When he turned to walk that way, Lull had moved; she was still on the bed, but in a completely different and altogether more alluring pose—she'd lay on her back then propped herself up on her elbows, and opened her legs rather wide. He could see the soaked smallclothes and a dark outline of pussy. _Scandalous_, he thought, laughing at how he hadn't anticipated her position change entirely and how smoothly she'd done it. He'd heard a ruffle of clothing, but not expected so much. He adored her goofy, engaged enthusiasm. She was also very attractive to him. Yet again he wanted to jump on her and utterly ravage her.

"Do you like, lover?" she said, trying to be sexy, but much more consciously simply trying not to laugh aloud. She mostly succeeded.

"I like, lover," he said, seriously.

She smiled, surprised—she'd expected another jokey response—and blew him a kiss and got up out of bed, looking determined, trying to hold their eye contact. She'd left her old, plain Thieves Guild armour set in her wardrobe; she dug it out.

Sol arranged his things. They both began changing. He had plenty to put on and take off, as she did. Somehow his cock was either soft or flaccid by then, which helped; donning armour with an erection was uncomfortable at the best of times, and it took a while anyway.

"You're going all-out for me? Even the low-quality fur boots?" Lull said.

"I am," Sol said, then shrugged. "Why not?"

She watched him, then said, "Thank you." They giggled. He glanced toward her. She got something small out of her wardrobe and deliberately concealed it from him. "You can't watch me, for now."

He kept looking at her with an expression of, "Really?"

"I wanna surprise you!" she said.

"By . . . stabbing me in the back?" he said, like he thought that might be what she was hiding.

"_No_," she said like it was terribly obvious. "Please?"

He turned away. He liked and disliked this at the same time. Usually he didn't care to watch his lovers get dressed; somehow, he specifically wanted to watch Lull dress, now.

"You're welcome, for the costume," he said, resuming dressing, fighting himself to keep not looking at her. "I disagree with not getting to watch you change if you can watch me change."

"I think it would be more exciting if the first time you saw me nude was during our love play," she said.

"I don't," he said, joking. He didn't mind either way.

"It's more exciting for me," she said.

"Fine," he said, obviously happy to indulge her, pretending he wasn't, and that he cared. "Well, I don't wear smalls, so when I change my lower half you'll have to avert your eyes as well."

"Really?" she said. She sounded happy to learn it.

"You'll have to wait to find out," he said, dragging his pile of gear around the corner into the hearth area.

"Damn!" she said, laughing.

They put on their costumes. Lull encouraged him to look at her again once she had on more than undergarments. He mostly didn't. Once he wasn't nude, he stepped back out into her view and she watched him rather closely. He found intriguing how familiar they both were with their respective, opposite-sides-of-the-law-in-Riften garb. Boiled leather took less time to don than mail and quilted armour, but no armour could be ready-to-go immediately—everything took some time to put on. Fellow guards Solitar knew, even ones who'd been doing it longer than him, would take minutes and more to get their armour on, but even with all the same pieces, the process always took him much less time. He wondered if it was like that in the Thieves Guild, when you were there as a fellow thief rather than a very welcome guest and friend as ever he was when he went there—if some people always took forever, if they coasted rather than really applying themselves, but others were like him and got faster and more efficient with experience.

"So," Lull said when they were both nearly fully kitted-out, "Let's both start outside. To keep you from breaking character, I'll walk you through roughly what I want to do. Because once we start this, I want us to go through all the way, without stopping or breaking immersion."

"What do you mean by 'all the way?'" Sol said. He kept his helm off.

"Until we're done," Lull said, winking. "Exhausted. With the fucking. Or if we want to try some other thing."

Sol processed that for a few seconds. He said, "Very well."

Lull smiled and kissed him. It was the most vulgar kiss he'd experienced in recent memory. "You'll be great," she said, holding him with a hand under his chin. She kissed him again. Not so vulgar, but enthusiastic. "It's going to be great. And I'll never forget you did it for me."

"Aye," Sol said, suppressing a thought he wanted to express ("Memory is subjective"), and then kissed Lull again. He held the kiss slightly longer than he meant to—couldn't help it. Tongues became involved. They both smiled afterward. "You trust me?" he said.

"I trust you," Lull said. "Do you trust me?"

"I do," Sol said.

"Good," Lull said.

He said, "We've been speaking of this too long—"

"Right," Lull said, and grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the Riften-city exit of Honeyside.

He didn't go along with it and she couldn't make him. He said, "Hold on," as he resisted.

She said, "What?," stopping and turning back.

"That's true but I didn't mean it that way," he said. "I meant: We've been building to this for a long time. Don't be afraid to change your mind. I'm into it, you have me now, but if you don't want to try it now, anymore, I won't be upset."

"Good," Lull said. "I know. And I don't want to change it. I really, _really _want this." Something in her eyes—that was the absolute truth. "Although we've talked about it too much now."

"Good," Sol said. "By the way, if you want me to stop, you could just say my real name, too. Because my character wouldn't give it to you. But if I do, in character, I'll make one up."

"Got it," Lull said.

"And I know you know," Sol said. "Only—don't worry about time waste, or saving face or some such. There's—I won't judge you. I won't think you fickle if we're going at it and then it's not working for you anymore, for whatever reason. Or worse. Or maybe we're just starting and you aren't enjoying the role-play scenario. I'll think you honest with yourself and respect you for it."

Lull smiled and kissed him. "You're talking too much," she said, dragging a finger up his neck to his chin, to his lips. "I want this. I want you. And I remember the safety phrase." She kissed him again. "Thank you so much, honeycum."

They giggled.

"You're welcome" he said. "I don't have a naughty nickname for you yet."

"That's not dirty," she said, "It's sweet."

"I think this will be fun for me too," he said.

"I hope so," she said. "Very. Yes. But you're still doing it for me. At my request."

They went outside and reviewed the general path she meant them to follow.

Only two people walked by them while they were outside, a dark elf man Lull had never seen before, wearing mundane clothing, and another Riften watchperson who recognized Sol quickly from his height and unusual weapons—a short warhammer and a Bosmeri-style war axe. "Using a helm again, lieutenant?" the watchman said, sounding surprised. A Nord—with his face in shadow, of course. Lull didn't recognize his voice, but then, they all sounded quite similar. Everything the man bore was standard-issue. So, not a Cool Guy.

"Move along," Sol commanded the watchman, who did so at once.

Lull had forgot what Sol's command voice sounded like. She liked it. She liked it a great deal.

Once the watchman was out of earshot Lull said to Sol, "Can you talk like _that _to me? During?" She gestured vaguely into her house.

"I will be," he said. Lull was delighted. "That's sort of the character. He's at work as all this happens."

Back in Honeyside, Lull set up her (probably stolen) jeweled candlestick on her end table and showed Sol how to stay out of her view as if he was trash at sneaking. _She's only anxious_, he noticed.

She got an empty sling bag to put the candlestick in, as if on a real burglary job. She considered weapons, checking a chest near her bed where she stored her collection. Lull considered light blood-play but decided against it. Sol might not be ready for it, or into it at all, and even if he was, she was already asking a lot of him; and then, she was a rank beginner and not ready for it today, and it was rather dangerous anyway.

"Let's not mess around with weapons, okay?" Lull said too Sol.

"Okay," Sol said.

"You should carry yours, because Sex-Pervert Guard wouldn't be unarmed, but I won't have any on me," she said.

"Understood," he said.

She looked at him and exclaimed, "The shield!" They'd both forgotten one for him. She ran to her wardrobe, got one out, picked up bits and bobs of armour that clattered out and about the floor—he helped her gather them—then she thrust the shield at him. He took it. He made sure it had Riften's sigil painted on it—it did.

They kissed each other one last time before going outside and getting into character. The kiss turned into a several-minute-long make-out session with light petting.

Then they went outside into Riften, Lull locked Honeyside's door, and Sol put his helm on.


	6. Ofan

**VI: Ofan**

Solitar was too attracted to Tluldir, felt too in-sync with her, to let her out of his sight at first. If he were himself, he'd be wary of anyone openly wearing Thieves Guild armour, especially a whole set—but he wasn't really himself, he was Sex-Pervert Guard, and he didn't much care about the law, or ethics or morals, only that this obviously-a-thief had an ass good enough to eat. And as she was clearly a thief, she'd perpetrate at least one crime, surely. That would be enough to take advantage of, personally. He could get laid _and_ make a few hundred septims from fucking her, taking a bribe and letting her go.

Sol watched Lull-as-virginal-thief-with-a-Hot-Ass, an ass so fine it was a proper noun, try the door into the house—locked—then kneel and start picking Honeyside's lock. She made very quick work of it. So she was a practiced thief. Maybe a specialist burglar. It occurred to Sol that he hadn't asked if Lull's character would have a name. But then, if she did, Sex-Pervert Guard—no, _he_—wouldn't care what it was.

_Be in character. Be in character,_ Sol told himself.

The thief left the door wide open behind herself, entering like she owned the place. She looked around at once for accessible valuables.

Because it was late night, it wasn't bright outside and seemingly dark in Honeyside; now the opposite was true. Sol—no, Sex-Pervert Guard—advanced quietly, which wasn't difficult in padding and mail if you moved slowly.

By the time he was at the house's entrance, the thief inside with The Booty was no longer near the entryway—he heard her going through a shelf, several feet away. He entered the home cautiously in case she'd noticed him somehow.

Inside, a bright hearthfire would've shielded him from her view on its own, but she also had her back to him. It was a noteworthy back.

She didn't see anything worth fencing in the hearth / kitchen / dining area and moved on to the master bedroom, which was also sort of a lounge.

He closed the front door behind himself, quietly. He didn't lock it because he gathered it would clank loudly.

"Score," he heard Lull say when her character—no, when _the thief_—noticed an extravagantly phallic candlestick. If she were a new thief, it would make sense for her to be vocally surprised at such a find. It was probably worth more than this house, if not the property it was on.

The thief ran to the bejeweled candlestick, snatched it up and thrust it into her sling bag.

"Stop right there, criminal scum!" Sol said—no, Sex-Pervert Guard said—in full authority voice.

Lull halted and whirled around to face him, one of her hands still on the candlestick in her bag, the other holding the bag up to make a deposit. He could still see the candlestick. She released it into the bag. She'd formally stolen it, now.

"You've committed crimes against Skyrim and her people," he said. "I'm confiscating your stolen goods." He walked closer to her. Not quietly.

"What stolen goods?" Lull said—playing dumb, but also posing herself coquettishly.

"I _saw _that, thief!" he—Sex-Pervert Guard—said, pointing to her bag. "And I saw you pick the lock. That's trespassing and unlawful entry, as well."

"Could I . . . talk you into overlooking this?" Lull—the thief—said.

"Return what you stole, pay a fine, and I can let you go with a stiff warning," he said. "A _very_ stiff warning." He got close to her, dominating her with his size and height. She looked afraid . . . but then she smiled again, excited, breaking character some. Fortunately, she couldn't see when he smiled, or probably his eyes, either, because he had the closed helm on.

"There," Lull said, setting her bag down. "Everything . . . it's all in there."

She didn't go on. Mayhap hoping he'd forget the "fine" part of what he'd said.

"That's a start," he said. "Now pay a fine, or go to jail."

"Um . . . I'm with the Guild," the thief said. "What would it cost me to clear my bounty?"

He tried to guess what the fine would really be—quick mental math: five septims for trespassing, five for unlawful entry, and the candlestick would sell new for at least 2,000 septims, probably many more, but he decided his character had no skill with appraisal and happened to guess very low: "It's going to cost you a thousand septims," he said.

"I don't have that much money!" the thief with That Ass despaired.

"To jail, then," Sol said, and snatched her by a wrist and dragged her toward the jail—back out the front door.

"Wait! Please!" she said, pretending to resist him but not really—letting him drag her, force her, control her body.

He stopped and said, "What?" like he was nearly out of forbearance.

"I'm the thane?" she said.

"No you're not," he said.

"Well there has to be _something _I can do!" she said, putting a hand on his arm. Very awkwardly, but as if it were an accident. She tilted her head down and looked up at him through her eyelashes. Which she fluttered once she remembered she had them.

Sol sighed, remembering that her character was supposed to be either young or naïve enough that she—no, that he was supposed to bring up sex-as-payment; he was the sexual aggressor, the dominant one.

"Fine," Sol said, resolving himself to really do this fantasy roleplay—to please Lull. She was already enjoying herself, clearly, though she was also clearly impatient; she wanted to get to the naughty bits, already, too. She wanted him to get past this initial sexless stuff, to get dirty. "There are other ways to pay your debt to Skyrim and her people."

"What other ways could there be? I'll do anything!" Lull said as if she could imagine none, still batting her eyelashes at him. She was in-character, but her hand broke out briefly—_not_ awkwardly—and moved to his chest, then slid from high, just below his neck, down to his belly.

"Pay me with your cunt," he said, as if the deal had already been struck.

Blood left Lull's face—not all of it, but enough. Her hand went back to herself. _She's a good actor_, Sol thought. "But—but I couldn't do that, ever," she said. _Never mind, she's terrible, _he thought, grinning. It worked for the Sex-Pervert Guard character, though, he would laugh at her character's fear and apprehension. She giggled too, then bit her lip to keep her face straight. She said, "I'm still a maiden!"

"Then that's what your crimes will cost you," Sol said. "I leave it up to you: Get fucked, or go to jail. You're not getting away with this, whatever you do."

Lull made herself look very small. "You don't have to be so vulgar."

"I'm being practical, not vulgar," Sol said. He had a thought: Sex-Pervert Guard was probably very sexist, and homophobic, as bizarre and logically fallacious and prejudiced as both beliefs were. This man would openly discriminate based on such things, as if they were legitimate. "Just thank the gods you're a woman, or you wouldn't have the choice."

"I choose . . . " Lull started to pretend-cry. She did a fine job of it. "Letting you claim my maidenhead."

"Don't revere it so much," Sol said, as Sex-Pervert Guard. "It's not special."

"Yes it is!" Lull said. She didn't really mean it; she was trying to stay in character. Like she was physically complying with him, but mentally and emotionally not. Then she smiled. "It's unique."

"Take your fucking clothes off," Sol said. "There are thousands of other women, and many of them have cunts. Not all of those are even born with maidenheads. Your _cunt _is unique, your maidenhead isn't."

It was supposed to be degrading somehow, something the character would say and believe, but instead it simply didn't make sense. _Whoops_, Sol thought. Lull looked confused for an instant, and then began undressing, first removing the Thieves Guild armour. She had to undo what seemed like fifty buckles to remove the leather jack. Then the boots—even more buckles. "Whatever," she said meekly, concluding their philosophical debate.

Sol began to disrobe. The helm came off first. "Here's how it's going to be," he said. "I'm going to fuck you, hard, and then come all over your pretty face. Then I'll let you go. Your stolen goods are forfeit."

"You're beautiful," Lull said to him. Sol couldn't tell if it was in-character or not. She sounded amazed. Probably mostly in-character.

"Excuse me?" Sol said like that was an insult.

"Nothing," Lull said, trying to play it off.

"Did you hear what I said?" he said.

"About me getting . . . " she said.

"Say it," he said. "I want to hear you say it."

"Getting _f__ucked_," she said. She loved it, smiling broadly, but she tried to stay in character, looking away from him, pretending reluctance and fear.

"See? Not that hard," he said. "It's just a word. Good; that's what's happening. You can either fight and resist, and make it hurt, or you can try to enjoy it. _I'm _going to enjoy it—I recommend you do the same."

"And if I don't?" she said, finally getting to her boots. "Enjoy it?" She was smiling and . . . rubbing one of her erect nipples, he noticed. He hadn't looked at her for long since she removed her long-sleeved jack, the main piece of her armour kit. Underneath that, she wore a rather elaborate breast-covering: one piece of blue cloth along her chest suspended between two long strings. One string tied high, at the back of her neck, and the other tied low, about halfway down her back. She hadn't been wearing that earlier—the cloth was solid, allowed no cleavage; before, she'd been wearing nothing beneath the relatively plain clothing on her torso, not so much as a strip of linen wrapped around her chest to contain or hide her breasts as was common in Skyrim. This design was called a halter neck, Sol knew; he wondered if it was common in Hammerfell. He'd never been there. _Whoops, reverie_, he noticed, catching himself. Not that Sex-Pervert Guard wouldn't stare—wouldn't _leer_. He would, and he'd think nothing of it. Lull was loving this and aroused, but still trying to play her character. She'd done her best to sound put-upon, insulted, offended, modest.

"I don't care," Sol said coldly. "You can choose to enjoy it or not. Just know: One shout from me and you'll have five more guards to deal with. They won't talk at you, or warn you, or allow you to enjoy it. They'll just use your body, and abuse it. They won't be gentle. They'll do damage."

His armour was all off. Lull was down to halter neck-and-marbled-nipples and trousers and . . . Sol wondered what she wore beneath those. Sol stepped close to her, dropping everything else—he was only clothes now. No weapons.

"Take it all off," he said.

"Can I persuade you to use only my . . . mouth?" she said, pretending to be ashamed. As she said it, though, she rubbed her hips and pelvis against him, ground her body against his cock, which he noticed was nearly fully erect. He didn't feel so aroused—it was a surprise.

"_Only_ your mouth?" he said. "No, you can't. I may _start _with your mouth. I'll be using your cunt, as well. Show it to me."

Her breathing was already quick. She was even more excited than he was. She stepped away from him, wanting to look into his eyes even if her character wouldn't, so she tried to look away, but they still frequently made eye contact. Lull wanted him _badly_. He wanted her badly as well.

Lull undid her trousers and turned sideways, perhaps so he could see her ass as she bent over, forward. He partook of the view.

Beneath Lull's trousers was something far removed from the typical Skyrim loincloth—what Lull wore was only the kind of string that would normally hold up the typical potato-colored linen cloth. The string was dyed blue and covered approximately nothing. It was surprisingly exciting.

Lull pretended that her trousers caught on one of her feet and that to loose them she somehow had to turn a full circle, in which time Sol got to see almost every inch of her skin as if she were already nude. Though she wasn't, quite. It was absurd, and Sol wanted not to enjoy it, but he enjoyed it. Sex-Pervert Guard would have loved it. So he tried to. He didn't have to try hard.

After Lull finished the circle she stepped back close to Sol and bumped into his cock and put a hand on him to keep herself from falling.

Sol imagined Lull orgasming. Again. This time with his cock inside her.

"Is that your . . . manhood?"" Lull said, like the last word was hard to get out. Like she'd never before said it aloud.

"We'll get to that, soon enough," he said.

"I've never seen a man sprout like that," she said, sounding impressed and intimidated. Something about the conscious effort she was clearly putting into feigning naïveté excited him. She was having tons of fun herself—he could see candlelight reflect off wetness on the insides of her thighs—but trying to make it fun for him, too, at the same time.

"You'll learn tonight, criminal scum," he said.

"Criminal's cum," she said, absentminded, staring at the pavilion tent of his cock rebelling against his trousers.

"What?" he said like that was insolence. Like she'd said "no."

"Nothing," she said meekly, looking away.

He reached forward, found the knot of string on the bottom of Lull's halter neck behind her back and undid it. That put their bodies necessarily very close together. His cock seemed to be straining against her . . . belly?, now, too. Lull's breathing hiked up again. He believed his did too. He felt her breath hot and humid and quick against his neck.

"You're so close to me," Lull whispered, putting her arms around him. "I haven't—done this before," she struggled to get out, as if embarrassed.

"It's nothing," Sol said, then found the top string of her halter neck, undid it, tossed the scrap of clothing onto the pile she'd made of the rest of her clothes. He rendered her nude before him. "Take my trousers off."

She did. He wore no smallclothes under them. Lull gasped. His cock sprang out into open air. "It's like a baby's arm holding an apple," she said in awe—in character. He laughed. She grinned and bit her lip—then gave in, breaking character; she giggled and rubbed at her almost entirely-exposed pussy, sighing deeply. Then she jumped back into character and added like she hadn't seen many cocks, "Are they all so big?"

"No," Sol said.

"That's going to hurt me," she said.

"Not if you let yourself enjoy it," he said. He kicked his trousers off behind him. Luckily, it worked on the first try. "Take my shirt off."

She did; she peeled it off. He took it from her hands and tossed it away.

"_Gods_," Lull sighed. "Your chest is . . . " She looked him over in detail. She seemed both in-character and out of it. "I—" she began, definitely in-character, like she was going to ask permission for something, but then couldn't help herself and started touching his chest, caressing his abdominal muscles, stroking other ones he didn't know the Tamrielic anatomical terms for, kissing his man-breasts, licking his collarbone.

After a time he stopped her, her arousal at dangerous levels. She was still happily submitting to him, for now, but if he didn't escalate soon she'd jump him.

The undergarments not particularly covering her asshole and cunt looked like two or three strings tied together. He leaned in to undo them—two knots, one on either hip. He enjoyed that intricacy about them, somehow. As he untied them, and tried to ignore the tantalizing feelings of her hands on his flesh and being able to feel her quick, hot breaths on his skin everywhere they hit him, he said, "You're going to suck my cock." He untied one knot. "And no teeth."

"What's that mean?" she said.

"'Suck?'" he asked—his character asked in disbelief.

"No, silly!" she said. She smacked one of his arms very lightly, then brought that hand back to admire his musculature. "Teeth." He wondered how someone like her character would really react in a situation like this.

"It means, don't let your teeth touch my cock," he said. "You could cover them with those cock-sucking lips of yours." He undid the other knot of the strings covering her cunt and let the string fall to the floor. "_No biting_. Do I need to tell you what I'll do to you, if I so much as feel you _beginning_ to try to harm me?"

"No, sir," she said, acting defeated, humiliated.

"Good," he said. "And I like that 'sir' bit. I _am _your superior, clearly, as one of the Cultured People. Call me sir every time you speak, criminal scum."

"Yes, sir," she said.

He looked into her eyes, probing, monitoring her. She was very into this, very excited. She smiled—she was happy, too, just trying not to act like it because her character wouldn't be. He was trying to get—stay—into this, for her. He seemed to be doing well. She hadn't told him to actually-stop.

"Get on your knees, scum," he said.

She had to unwrap her arms from him, release his muscles. She did so quickly, then she sunk to her knees and looked up into his eyes, then to his cock, then back to his eyes. Eager. Breathing rapid. Aroused. She put her hands on his thighs, very lightly. He felt his cock and his arousal surge.

He used a hand to align his cock with her mouth. He thought she'd open up on her own, but she didn't. "Open your mouth," he said.

She tried to look afraid, and shook her head, not opening her mouth, not meeting his eyes.

He grabbed the back of her head with one of his hands, and kept his cock aimed at her mouth with the other. He leaned his pelvis forward and pulled her mouth over his cock, forcing her lips open. Her breathing quickened. She sighed as if afraid. One of her hands darted down between her legs and began rubbing her pussy. Her other hand tentatively went up higher on his thigh.

Once the full head of his cock was in her mouth, he said, "Suck." He felt no teeth.

She closed her lips down on his cock, all around it, and sucked.

Sol moaned.

Lull moaned too, looking up at him, watching him.

He pushed her head back until the crown of his cock's head revealed itself outside of her mouth—almost out, showing against her lips—then pulled her head toward him, making his cock's head and some of the shaft disappear into her mouth.

She kept sucking.

"Suck harder," he said. "Thief."

She moaned, and rubbed her pussy more animatedly.

She sucked harder.

He moaned. It came out a little too loud.

He forced her to bob her head (she didn't resist)—mostly off of his cock, then he'd make her take a little of it in, then back out, then back in, her sucking all the while—for a time, and about when he noticed himself not needing to think to keep making her do it for him, he felt her doing it on her own. They were both lively, noisy; moaning and groaning together. He believed if they _were _their characters they'd both be rather quiet, though, except for occasional noises of her slurping saliva and him slipping in and out. Him not wanting to get caught, her ashamed. He took his hands off her head and stopped holding his cock still, and simply watched her work. She was good at it, and trying to pretend not to be. Odd mixture.

"Lick it," he told her, moaning.

She changed nothing, but kept doing what she was already doing: sucking his cock off and on, sometimes hard and sometimes softly, and bobbing its head and a bit of its shaft in and then mostly out of her mouth. When she started moving her head on her own, she went exactly at the pace he'd set, slow, but she'd sped up since taking over. Meanwhile, her right hand worked at her pussy. She kept moaning, even as she worked his cock with her mouth. She'd put her other hand on his cock, wrapped it around the shaft to hold it still and occasionally squeeze it near the base. She didn't lick.

"Lick my cock," he insisted, waiting until he wasn't moaning to say it with force. He grabbed a fistful of her hair like he'd somehow force her to lick. Or maybe like he'd choke her with his cock until she did what he wanted.

She added her tongue to the mixture of pleasure she gave him. In addition to the already-wonderful suction, and general attention, she dragged her tongue over his cock, stroking as much of it entered her mouth and sometimes letting her tongue snake out of her mouth to lick its exposed length. She licked the head, dragged her tongue in and around his cock's opening, its spout.

"You like this, don't you?" he said—as Sex-Pervert Guard.

She hummed a "Definite no!"—as he, looking down, saw two of her fingers rubbing around her clit. She moaned.

"Yes you do," he said. "Filthy thief bitch."

She moaned, loudly, her body writhing beneath his. She took her largely idle hand, wrapped about the base of his cock, and began using it to stroke along the shaft of his cock, from whatever wasn't in her mouth all the way to the hilt—against his pelvis, colliding with his balls—and back. _She's _loving_ this_, he noticed. He was confident she'd been loving it the entire time.

"_Fuck_ yeah," he said, moaning from the feeling and even more than that knowing how much she enjoyed giving him that feeling. "Suck that cock."

Lull moaned, shuddered. When the shudder reached his cock, the feeling was rather intense. Something about seeing her writhe and her tits jiggle threatened to drive him wild, make him forget the entire fantasy scenario and give her a good hard fucking like he knew she'd want eventually, and hope to reach orgasm at the same instant when she did.

Sol let that go on a little longer—allowed her to keep worshipping his cock. He was so mad with desire for her body and for pleasing her it was like his body forgot it even _could_ orgasm—he was incredibly aroused, to be sure, but somehow felt nowhere near coming yet. He liked that. His body seemed to agree with him, that it had other, better things to do first.

"Stop," he told her.

Lull looked up at him from her knees admiringly, one hand on his cock, the other down on her pussy, the head of his cock deep in the hot wetness of her mouth, her lips pursed against the shaft, her cheeks in and hollow from sucking on his cock. Sol wanted to think she was impressed with how super-awesomely-good he was, though he wasn't doing anything, but couldn't allow himself that. Even if she was impressed with him somehow, maybe it was part of the act. After a look, she remembered her character and looked down and away, as if ashamed. She dropped her hands, rest them on her thighs, sat down. She kept her mouth about the end of his cock.

He badly wanted to eat her pussy out, make her lie still for him until she came eight more times, but it occurred to him his character wouldn't be so empathetic, wouldn't care about her pleasure. If Sex-Pervert Guard would say anything about her pleasure, which he wouldn't, it would be something like, "You can _try _to get yours while I get my nut off," and he wouldn't go out of his way to please anyone but himself. So Sol would have to save cunnulingus for later.

In the meantime: He'd try to ask, as indirectly as felt right, if she was ready; if she (Lull herself, not her sex-character) wanted to get fucked yet.

"Keep stroking it," he said.

"With my hands?" she said, looking between his eyes and his cock, the end of which was slick and glistening with her spit.

"Sir," he said.

"Do you want me to stroke . . . you, with my hands, sir?" she said, stumbling over it all.

"Yes," he said. "Stroke my cock."

She put one hand on his cock and started stroking again, slowly, pretending at clumsiness—this time, deliberately not doing it well. Which seemed fitting. She'd done it well, before, without thinking. Her engagement, how much thinking she was putting into what she did to him, made everything sexier to him, somehow.

"Have you ever done something like this before, outlaw?" Sol said.

"No," Lull said like she was offended and sort of angry he would be at all in doubt, or ask her something so personal. Bashful, she added, "Never, sir. I've only . . . _kissed _boys before." She looked away and said slyly, "And some girls."

Sol wasn't sure how Sex-Pervert Guard would react to that last sentence. If he were homophobic he should fear or disdain it. But Sol knew some homophobic men found same-sex acts alluring if members of the sex opposite their own did them. Maybe he'd enjoy it in some deeply private secret way he'd never admit. He, Sol, thought it was awesome (also because he was confident it was true), and also very funny how she delivered it, and he couldn't help but giggle. "You've not had a cock in your cunny before," he said.

Lull blushed. Or maybe Sol imagined that. She reacted, anyway. She pretended she was embarrassed, shamed by him. She—Lull, not the character—saw where he was going with this and loved it, though. She sighed inadvertently. She did her best to speak in character, saying, "N-no, sir." She quavered.

"My cock _could _hurt you, so let's make it not," he said. "Or don't, I don't care. All I mean is it doesn't have to hurt you."

"Okay," she said, pretending not to want it. "I follow." She kept stroking his cock. Most of the time he barely noticed her stroking it, but occasionally she'd include doing it quite well, in small doses, or twist—especially when her hand got to his cock's head—and then he'd be jerked back into reality and unable to suppress a moan. "I don't want it to hurt me," she lied.

"If it hurts you bad, that's not fun for me," he said. He pointed to the dinner table, off to his side. "Lie on that table."

He helped her stand, with both hands. Her dominant hand, the right, the one she'd been directly pleasing herself with, was slippery with her own wetness. Her other hand was sticky with spit.

Lull got on the wrong side of the table, facing him. If he fucked her like that, he'd have his back to the entry door. No. She sat on the edge of the table and opened her legs wide. That was engorgingly lovely. (Not a proper Tamrielic word, but a very descriptive one.)

"No," he said, and grabbed her arm and pulled her down. He locked the front door with her in tow, then went back to the table. "I'll put you how I want you," he said, leading and pushing her into position.

He went to the other side of the table, stood Lull out of the way, pulled the chair on that side out one-handed and then threw it noisily out of the way. He used his free arm to brush a few plates and utensils and unopened wine and ale bottles off and let them clatter to the floor. Nothing broke.

Sol pulled Lull close. She looked confused, but went along with him. Then he turned her around, put her back side to his front. Lull sighed, thrilled. Very much in her character's voice, she said, "What are you doing?"

He spanked her ass and watched it jiggle. She moaned and looked back at him over her shoulder. She pretended not to love his attention. "Sir," he reminded her.

"What do you want, sir?" she said.

He walked her into the table then bent her straight down over it, sticking her ass out at him, with her belly down on the table.

He knelt to inspect her pussy. Wet. He said, "Open your cunt for me."

"How?" she said, like there was some filthy sex thing she could do that she didn't even know about which he did.

"Pull the lips apart," he said, trying to sound like he was in a heady, excited rush to bust his nut, excited by her compliance.

She did—reached around behind herself without raising her chest from the table and pulled her nether lips apart.

He stood and probed the area with his cock. Teasing. Within their fantasy play also familiarizing her with the feeling of hard cock. She gasped nearly every time he moved, every time he touched her. He nudged his cock's head inside of her. Moaning loudly, she also got out a few words in-character: "Ow ow ow!"

"Does that hurt, criminal?" he said without mercy—like, "You deserve this." He didn't push in at all; more like prodded at her entrance. The head of his cock was already wet with her. It would take little effort to push all of his cock inside of her.

"Yes!" she said—but held position, didn't move. She still held her pussy open for him with both hands.

"Yes, _sir_," he corrected.

"Yes _sir!_" she said. "It hurts." Her character's words belied her desires—she loved what he was doing. She kept nudging back at him, to get more of his cock inside of her. She was submitting; she wouldn't jump him and ride him, yet, she enjoyed this even more. He reckoned he could get at least one orgasm out of her, in this scenario, before she ran out of patience.

"Then don't steal from the good people of The Rift!" he said with a kind of righteous anger he'd never felt, though he'd heard it in others plenty. "Sneak thief. Let this be a lesson to you." He took hold of her body with a hand on her waist, but kept his other hand free to spank her if she complained any more, and before that, to aim his cock to penetrate her pussy.

"I wasn't stealing," she said.

He spanked her, hard. "Yes you were, thieving cunt."

"I'm sorry!" she said.

He spanked her again, not so hard. "You're sorry _what?_"

"I'm sorry, _sir!_" she cried.

"Good," he said. He spanked her again, less hard, like a reward. "No more lies, bitch. Not to me."

"Yes sir," she said. She tried to sound like she was in pain, but she wasn't. Or not enough for it to be unpleasant, anyway.

"Is my cock going to hurt you too much?" he said. "Do I need to stretch out your fucking thief cunt, before I fuck it?"

"No, sir," she said like she was close to weeping. Clearly jubilant. She moved her hands from holding her pussy wide open to him to bracing herself on the table. "I can take it. Sir," she added.

Sol pushed his cock all the way into her, hilting his sword in her sheath.

Lull screamed. In pleasure.

Sol moaned. Couldn't hold it in. Probably better for her that way. He held her still with both hands—one on her waist, though he moved it lower to her hip; he moved his other hand from his cock to her ass, squeezing it, using one of her ass cheeks as a grip to keep her pussy steady.

Lull writhed, still moaning.

"Does that hurt you too much, criminal?" he said—imperious, condescending, cold, mocking.

"No sir," she said in one breath. She brought one of her arms in to work at one of her nipples, smashed against the table. She was humming all over. Wound tight around him.

"You better be telling the truth—" he said.

"I am, sir!" she interrupted.

He spanked her, hard again. Harder than he meant to. She cried out in pleasure, not trying to fake pain. "Don't interrupt me, bitch," he warned. She gasped, moaning. He seemed to be playing his part well, for her. He tried to allow himself not to be uncomfortable saying such things. She seemed close to coming again. She'd never become less than aroused since her previous practice-orgasm. It'd only got her hotter.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said.

"Don't do it again," he said. "As I was saying," he resumed. He felt her pussy clench around his cock. He groaned. He spanked her, not very hard. She moaned. "You better be telling the truth, scum. If I finish and notice blood on my cock, I'll give you a beating in addition to a hard fucking. The kind of beating that shows. Understand?" That was the best way he could think of to say, "Are you ready to get fucked?" without saying it.

"I understand, sir," she said. "I don't want a beating. I'm well." She thought he was being too sweet, checking in with her at all. He'd thought one utterance of "cunt" would be too much for her, but it wasn't, not at all. She wanted him to be fucking pounding her already. But she was bearing with him. For now. It was only their first time together, not the fiftieth or two-hundredth. What he was doing was still quite sexy to her. She liked it.

"Good," he said. "I'll ask only once more: Is my cock too thick for your cunt?"

She moaned. "It's—it's a lot, but it's not too much," she said. She keened as he shifted his cock, its entire length still in her. "Sir."

"Good," he said.

He paused . . . then fucked her.

She screamed.

He went on like that for an interminably long time—it might've been five or fifteen minutes—slowly fucking her harder and faster, if only to avoid monotony. Once she was used to the feeling and grew accustomed to his cock, he felt like either he or she was getting bored or would be, and he remembered how badly he wanted to rub her clitoris and impale her on his cock at the same time. He was already fucking her too hard too fast to be able to give her clit the attention it deserved, and anyway, his character, Sex-Pervert Guard, wouldn't care if she ever got off. He probably wouldn't care to stimulate her clit. So he couldn't do so directly. He got a better idea. He struck the rhythm she seemed to enjoy most—somewhat slow, but hard—and once as he thrust he said, "You can do what you like with your hands. Fucking slut thief." He spanked her as he insulted her.

She seemed to nearly come undone with his words, the fake disrespect, alone. One of her hands snaked down beneath her, to her clit. The other she needed on the table to brace herself. Her nipples must have been directly on the surface—smooth, waxed, but hard, unyielding. He'd assumed it was rough. Not so. She seemed to enjoy whatever it felt like, rocking violently back and forth, her nipples dragging. He imagined a burning sensation. Sol noticed—the noise of their bodies meeting, the slaps of skin on skin from their contact, kept getting wetter and wetter, and louder and louder. It was obviously filthy. He enjoyed that very much. He wasn't sure if she was aware of it. If she was, she enjoyed it too.

She got even louder the instant she started touching her clit while he fucked her.

She broke—?—character somewhat and bucked back against him, throwing her ass at him to meet him as he thrust inside of her.

He remembered her character's arc—that she was supposed to be reluctant and embarrassed and virginal at first, but his good hard fucking got past that façade and they'd both discover her hidden, inner slut, in the best way.

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you were enjoying this," he said. He laughed at her. It sounded somewhat real. "Sneak-thief bitch." He spanked her.

"No, sir!" she yelled. "I'm not. I _swear_ I'm not!" Loving it. She enjoyed every thrust. She was building to a powerful climax.

He spanked her, harder. "You're not, _sir_," he corrected. He thrust harder into her. Then he pulled back out, taking his time, on this occasion almost entirely removing himself. Then he thrust back into her pussy, just as hard as before. As he pushed in, she recoiled from his previous thrust and forcefully met his pelvis again. Their meeting issued a loud wet slap. It was incredible. He was going to come hard too. He grew concerned that if he let himself spurt inside of her she might explode, bodily, or his cum might damage her vital organs. But he'd said he'd come on her face. The first few shots might take her head off, though, or go through it.

"I swear I don't like this, sir!" she squealed.

"Good," he said, and spanked her, much less hard this time. Still enough to make her ass jiggle, and to make noise. "Never fucking steal again."

"I'll never steal in The Rift again," she said.

Sol leaned down over her, far forward, almost pressing himself against and along her entire body out of necessity, and pulled her back into his cock via her hair. Which she loved. Getting speared on him and having her hair pulled. She arched back into him for more contact, and with each of his thrusts threw her ass back at him. Which made it jiggle even more upon impact. She grew yet louder—moaning, panting, crying, keening. Losing language, for now. He was pleasantly surprised by how much she loved all this. How much she enjoyed it.

"You won't steal _anywhere _again, thief," he said, leaning as close to her left ear as he could get without losing much of his savage thrusts' power or leverage. "Say it." She didn't. He stood normally, again, and spanked her—a loud moan escaped her—and added, "Fucking say it."

She had trouble making words, but got out: "You're hurting me." She didn't mean it. She loved this. She said it in a tone of "don't you dare stop."

The words themselves threw him off, though; he still held her hair, and he didn't forget himself. He let up with his thrusts. But didn't stop fucking her. She hadn't said the stop-phrase, hadn't said "stealing is bad." _That all-stop phrase wasn't a good selection_, he noticed.

He gripped her hair tighter, spanked her harder, then started thrusting his cock inside of her as hard as he had been a moment ago. Then he fucked her even harder.

"_Good_," Lull said, low but clearly. An aside. Then back in character she said, "You're hurting me, _sir_."

"I assure you," he said, carefully so he wouldn't sound too absurd. "Having a couple more cocks in this same hole would hurt much more. Other guards—" He spanked her, hard. "—not as nice as me. Or fellow prisoners. Sixteen lonely, angry men using you, all at once." He kept fucking her hard. "Pumping you full of filthy criminal cum."

"_Yes! Sol!_" Lull said, definitely breaking character. He wasn't sure if she'd actually want to pull a train or get gang-banged, but entertaining the thought of it thrilled her. Maybe she was imagining him arranging such, just for her pleasure. Maybe it was imagining all the cum.

She bucked back against him as hard as she could. Still stroking her own clit.

"Yes _what?_" he said sharply, and spanked her ass in rebuke, and pulled her back into his cock using only her hair as a grip. He used his other hand on her hip only to guide her trajectory—angle and direction.

"_Yes sir!_" she screamed, coming all around him, yelling her pleasure. "I'll never steal again! I swear _I swear!_" she got out just before she forgot how to words. She sounded like she was about to cry tears of joy again, except quite loudly.

He kept going until her explosive orgasm subsided. A few times he thought she would writhe and squirm herself off the table he'd bent her over, though she never did. Then he stopped, but kept his cock sheathed in her pussy. It was still thoroughly hard, like glass. Somehow he hadn't come yet. He withdrew partway, looking at the penetration, enjoying it. He saw her cum all over his cock. It was wonderful.

"You just had your pleasure, didn't you?" Sol said, back in character.

"No, sir," a momentarily dazed Lull said. Panting, recovering.

He spanked her, sharply, and said, "Don't lie to me, slut."

That awakened her. "Yes," she admitted, feigning shame. "I came, sir."

Sol held her and stayed in the same position—her bent over the dining table, his cock buried in her pussy, him standing up behind her. He said, "Have you ever been fucked in the ass?" He wasn't close to coming yet but wanted to be; he didn't really want to do anything anal, he was stalling for time while he made up his mind about what to do next. Whatever he thought Lull might want or enjoy most.

"Never!" Lull said, fake-scandalized. "I've never been f— . . . _fucked_ before." She tried to sound like the very idea of sex in the butt shocked her. "Your fat guard cock would tear my bottom apart, sir! Please, don't!"

Sol laughed—her utterance of "guard cock" was so ridiculous he couldn't suppress it. "Bottom" seemed silly too, somehow. It took him out of their moment, but was also awesomely funny. Worth it. Then he remembered—such silliness was kind of part of the roleplay, of their game. They both played stereotypes, caricatures—exaggerations. It was inherently comedic. To him, anyway. He kept one hand on her hip and groped her ass with the other, letting himself enjoy feeling and seeing her body. "Fine," he said. He tried to play off his laughter like he was mocking her character's inexperience. "Mayhap I can use your mouth." He spanked her—still meaning it, but not so hard. She flinched. Her pussy squeezed at his length in her. She moaned. He groaned. Sol loved Lull's ass and back, but wanted to see something different: her face and tits.

"Use my mouth for what, sir?" Lull said as if she couldn't imagine what he had in mind.

He slipped his cock out of her. Her body didn't want him to leave. His body didn't want to leave hers either. Lull sighed and looked back at him.

He pulled her up, to get her to stand, by her waist and walked her toward the master bed. Her bed. She seemed to actually want his help walking. She started to fall, whimpering—he couldn't tell how much of it was real, if any—and he caught her.

"Sorry, sir," she said as he stood her back up. "I've never known such justice."

"A typical response," he said. He gave up letting her walk herself as a bad job, grabbed her and heaved her up, cradled her between his arms, and carried her. "It's known to inspire awe," he continued. "I grow tired of you. Are you understanding the lesson of this at all, thief?"

"Yes I am, sir!" she said happily, wrapping her arms around him, leaning in. Sol gathered this was part of her character discovering her inner slut, as she'd described it. If simply enjoying sex made a person slutty, he was a big ol' slut himself. He'd rather call it "sexually liberated," though, people always used terms like "slut" as negatives, insults, slurs. Sol walked slowly to Lull's bed. He enjoyed carrying her. "I'm not to steal again," she said. "Sir."

"That's right," he said. He felt some of her body's natural lubricant dripping off his cock. "If I catch you—if _any_ watchman catches you—it'll be like this again, but worse. You don't want that, do you?" He reached the bed.

"Maybe a little," Lull said.

Sol dropped her on the bed with no warning. She yelped in surprise on the way down.

"What did you say?" he said, fake-angry with her.

"No, sir!" she said. "I said no! I don't want this never ever again, sir."

Sol chuckled. Lull laughed. She was so happy. She didn't try to get up, or even move from where he'd dropped her. Her legs were open, exposing her pussy to him. She was on her back. Her tits spilled sideways off her chest. She still breathed hard. He watched her belly rapidly expand and contract, and her tits move with her. She watched him. Often looking to his cock. And his chest and shoulders. She tried to give him doe eyes. With her own wetness all over her thighs, sweat on her face and neck, her pussy stretched out from his handiwork. Or, cockiwork.

Sol looked away from her, smiling, his cock throbbing again for want of her, then he tried to lose the smile and looked back to her in-character and said, "That's right. I assure you, steal again and you _will _be caught. Hope _I_ catch you."

"I swear I won't steal again, sir," she said. She made this adorable expression. Not the kind of expression he'd want to see on a face whose pussy he seriously wanted to smash much more. It took him out of his aroused trance, though it was also wonderful to see a completely different side of his lover, a cutesy girlish one. It was like seeing a different person.

"You've got the way of it," he said. "Good." He crawled over her and started to align their bodies, sheath with sword. He thought about her pussy, and about the way she howled when she came, instead of the cutesy girlish look he'd just seen. She got excited at him mounting her, smiled, watched him, watched his cock impend toward her pussy. "Now I'm going to finish," he said, "then drop a hot load of justice all over your face, to be sure you remember this."

"No," Lull said. "Please don't do that sir," she said, deliberately not meaning a word of it, smiling, testing him. That somehow turned him on more. That she wanted it—either for him to climax, or for him to spurt his climax on her face, or both.

"You'll take it and like it, criminal scum!" he said. Sex-Pervert Guard, his character, had been softening up to her as she complied. Now seemed a good time to bring back the character's hateful domination—at disagreement, at a challenge. As he spoke, he pulled her legs apart. They'd already been apart enough for him to see her pussy. He wanted her open to him even wider. He thought about the typical missionary position, with her legs around him, or maybe off to the sides. Then he thought better of it and bent her legs forward, kissing and nipping at her inner thighs and tasting wetness from her pussy spread over them; he bent her legs forward all the way, until her feet were by her head. Her breathing quickened. Her mouth stayed open to breathe. The bed was too short for him, so he moved her until she was properly sideways and put one of his legs up on the bed and grounded his other on the floor.

"Kiss me, please," Lull said as he pulled her closer to him by her pelvis to penetrate her deeply. He loved that she wanted to be kissed. She kept her legs up by her head without assistance. She put one of her hands on his face and pulled him into her by his back with the other. He looked at the way her pussy's copious lubrication caught and refracted firelight. Amazing. She actually wanted a kiss, but she tried to say it in character—falsely tinged with insecurity, shame, confusion.

"You want that?" Sol said, trying to likewise remain in character, smirking. Sex-Pervert Guard, he decided on the spot, had never experienced one of his victims reacting like this—liking it, _wanting_ it, wanting more, welcoming him. He tried to sound surprised, taken off-guard. (_Pun!_, he thought.)

"Yes, sir," she said—she "admitted" shamefully. But then smiled in anticipation.

He shrugged like "whatever," as if he didn't care, and got his body very close up against hers—nearly close enough to kiss—but then he stopped. The fake-out genuinely worked on Lull; she thought it an accident, retracted both her arms and lifted herself up on her elbows to go the rest of the distance between them. That is, she did until he stopped her and pushed her back down, flat on her back on the bed, with a firm hand on her collarbone. She sighed "_Sol_" under her breath, sounding desperate to get fucked and kissed more.

He looked into her eyes as he grabbed his cock, lined it up with her pussy by feel, and finally guided it back into her. All the way; slowly, but all in one motion, he hilted himself inside of her. She groaned, then groaned louder, and eventually sputtered out a ragged "_Fffuckk!_" as he did so.

Thenhe kissed her. He didn't let her rise to meet him, though. He held her down. She liked it.

He resolved to fuck her silly, go all-out and allow himself to genuinely not care if he lost himself and reached his own orgasm before she had another. Even then, it seemed boring to go for that all at once, so he started slow. He and Lull felt rather separate again, to him, at first, which he meant to remedy; after a few minutes, during which he somehow ignored his own pleasure again, they seemed to have become one all over again, fusing together—they melded into a moaning-groaning-sighing pleasure-beast with two backs. They kissed nearly constantly, except for a few brief breaks either of them needed to catch their breath or exclaim something filthy. Eventually Lull propped herself up on an elbow to kiss him, and he allowed her to, though after a minute of it she broke the kiss and fell onto her back, saying, "I need to come," out-of-character, in the same moment she put a hand to her clit and started rubbing it madly.

She came quickly. It seemed short but explosively strong. She yelled. His ears hurt.

Sol went all-out after that, trying to come. Naturally, as soon as he decided he was completely ready to come, it took him all the longer to reach climax. He resumed talking dirty with Lull, and tried to stay in-character for it: "You like that, don't you, lawbreaker?" he said, fucking her hard again—doing it for himself, trying to come—but now also deeply and relatively quickly. The noise of their bodies meeting had become hard to ignore, once again; so had both of their mutual noises of pleasure, happiness, contentedness—moans, sighs, laughs, grunts, groans, breaths.

"Yes," she said, no longer rubbing her clit. She held him behind his neck with one hand and pinched and twisted one of her own lovely, dark, erect nipples with the other.

"Do you like that guard cock in you?" he said.

"I do, sir," she said loudly. She pretended it was difficult for her to admit it. She looked away from him.

"You could've paid the fine," he said, stabilizing himself with one arm on the bed, by her head. He did that to grab her other tit—the one she wasn't stimulating herself—and hold it and just enjoy touching a tit—for his own pleasure, not hers.

"I couldn't," she said in a shamed tone. "I'm so glad I couldn't, sir."

"Yeah?" he said, fucking her relentlessly.

"_Yeah_," she moaned, and agreed thoroughly, her eyes closed hard, her head bent back, keening. She arched into him as best she could, meeting his thrusts. She sounded like she could come again in . . . soon.

He leaned up to adjust his angle, and specifically tried to hit that one special spot inside of her pussy with each push of his cock, on the way in and the way out. He knew he'd been hitting it a lot tonight without making special effort to. Which was lucky. If her volume and wetness was to be trusted, he hit it almost every time just now.

He released her tit, not quite wanting to, to touch her clit himself. She gasped. "It seems when one touches your mystical lady parts—" They both broke into laughter he had to pause for. Lull's laughter was beautiful and sexy and messy and aroused. "—it makes your cunt clamp down on my cock." He said as much of it as he could with a straight face. She opened her eyes at the word "mystical," and saw some of that.

She giggled, then tried to say in-character, "Yes." An admission. "Sir."

He winked at her and she giggled again. "I gather that's not unpleasant. I care not. Know: I do this for myself."

"I know," she said, truthfully. She opened her eyes and watched him fuck her. She loved it. She laughed, happy. He laughed too. They laughed together lustily, in ecstasy.

"Do you know how getting with child works?" he said. He wanted to fuck her and roleplay-converse at the same time but couldn't make it work, so he just stopped humping her entirely.

"The man . . . " Lull began. She seemed confused at why he'd stopped thrusting. "Pisses in the woman?"

Sol slapped one of her tits, lightly. "'In the woman,' _what?_" he said.

She yelped, surprised—then she smiled, enjoying it and surprised she was. "In the woman, sir," she corrected.

"That's right," he said of the "sir." He started pushing his cock into and pulling it back out of her pussy, but he had to do it slowly. "It's something like that."

He let himself feel and enjoy every inch of her pussy. Mostly he kept his cock buried in her, but just now, he withdrew entirely to drag his cock's head over and among her pussy lips, major and minor, and over the insides of her thighs some as well (he didn't know why he wanted to do that, but he knew he enjoyed it). He did it for himself, but it drove Lull wild somehow; after a moment of it, she grabbed his cock and pulled it back into her desperately and rocked herself back and forth as best she could to fuck him. He pushed all the way into her, until he felt his balls pressing into her skin, and then he pulled almost all the way back out, until he could see the edge of his cock's head again. Lull moaned, content, throughout. Her body tried to hold his cock inside.

"If I got you with child, I'd have to kill it," he said. He watched her pussy intently, watched himself repeatedly stab into her. It seemed her pussy kept getting wetter. She brought her legs down from her shoulders—he moved his arms out of the way to allow her to put them wherever she wanted, leaned back, and fucked her standing to do so—and put them around his waist. That was good for him, helped him get closer to spurting—he needed to feel more of her heat, all around his cock and even on his crotch. Now he felt that heat. She felt much more together with him, surrounded him, merged with him. "A bastard would be inconvenient for both of us. So, what a man normally puts inside a woman to get her with child, I'm going to put on your face."

"Your seed?" Lull said. She licked a finger and started rubbing her clit again.

"Yes," he said, then groaned. "When I say, you'll get on your knees below me, on the floor."

He noticed: The angle of their parts' meeting was off. He leaned up toward the top of her bed, took a pillow, then put it under Lull, lifting her with one arm. She paused worrying at her clit for an instant, and then opened her eyes—resumed touching herself and looked into his eyes. She watched him, moaning. "_I want your cum,_" she whispered, decidedly not in character. Back in character she said, "Then you'll put your justice and love on my face?" She closed her eyes and rolled her head back, exposing her neck to him. She moaned.

"No love," Sol said, "only justice." Lull smiled.

With that he started to fuck her hard, properly, again, with reckless abandon. She couldn't remember the last time anybody had fucked her like this. It was wonderful. Very intense. Surprisingly intimate. Amazing.

"Will it hurt?" she said amid getting ravished. "Your load of justice? Sir?"

"Only if you don't close your eyes," he said. "When I say, get down and offer your face to me. Tilt your head back. Close your eyes. Understand, criminal?"

"I understand, sir," Lull said . . . and came again. All over his cock.

"Well now, what do we have here?" Sol said, laughing, surprised, but still in-character, as she spasmed and latched down on his cock and yelled in pleasure and squeezed him with her legs. He didn't think she'd hear him; this orgasm seemed especially powerful.

"A whore!" Lull said loudly.

Sol held her by her tits, leaning back to avoid weighing her down, and hunching down to keep fucking her the same way. The wet, hot, beautiful mess below him. "That's right. _My_ whore," he said.

"Yes!" she said, still so loud it caused his ears discomfort. Which he enjoyed. He almost hoped the neighbors and passers-by heard him satisfying her.

"You like that, don't you, scum? Being my fucking whore." He was getting close. He loved dirty talk, but usually to be so insulting would do nothing for him; but it all worked so well for Lull it worked for him too. If Lull wasn't so clearly getting off on it—well, first, he never would've carried on doing it, but second, he'd be disgusted with himself. In this moment, though, debasing her was good. She enjoyed it more and more as it got worse.

"I do!" Lull said. "I like it so much, sir!" She was still coming, all around him. It felt like her pussy was trying to milk his cum out of him. He kept fucking her.

Her orgasm receded. Sol paid close attention to her pleasure and didn't notice his own backing away again; he simply assumed his pleasure didn't recede too, and so once she seemed to be calm again, not still climaxing, he withdrew from her, stepped back to give her space to kneel before him and said, "Get down," stroking his cock swiftly and squeezing his balls, using both hands to please himself.

Lull flew to the floor, naked, jiggling, sweaty, slick with her own cum, glorious, beautiful. She got in a lovely position below him, then watched him trying to finish himself. She watched idly for a moment then took over for him, saying, "Let me do it, sir."

"You want to?" he said.

She sucked on the very tip of his cock's head, then loudly popped her lips off of it and said, "I do. Let me make you come, sir."

"Shoot it on your fucking face," Sol ordered, trying to make himself ejaculate, curling his toes, watching Lull work his fem-cum-soaked cock enthusiastically and hard with two twisting hands. In-character he also tried to pretend—to act—as if he were still completely in control of both himself and her. He noticed he wasn't so close to coming as he thought. Minutes, perhaps, but not seconds as he'd believed.

"I will," she said; obliging, awesome.

"If you aim away from your visage—" he warned.

"I won't," she said, and kissed his cock's head. She worked his cock ruthlessly, trying to make him come as soon as possible. It wasn't working. Odd. "I know I deserve this," she said, licking from his balls along the bottom of his cock and back up to the head. "Give it to me, sir." He watched her tits jiggle as she tried to finish him, unselfconsciously, rapidly stroking his cock.

"Good," he said, trying to stay in character—pretending he was disgusted with her character's discovery that she was so audacious as to dare to _enjoy _sex. He was embarrassed he wasn't already spurting justice onto her face. It would've been better, less annoying, to have accidentally lost it earlier and blasted all his seed into her pussy. Or thrown it about the room whilst he dismounted her and had her kneel. Or been withdrawing and noticed it was happening now and sprayed it on her belly and tits. Well, he was probably going to come rather hard, so likely also her face and her bed and the floor on the other side of the bed. And maybe the ceiling. He looked away in embarrassment, but tried to play it off like in-character disgust.

"What, sir?" Lull said. "Am I doing badly?"

"No," he said. "I'm not so close to dropping justice as I thought." He was trying to stay in character, so he wasn't going to—

"It's okay," Lull said, decidedly out-of-character; and then, back in-, she said further, "Should you use my mouth, sir?"

"Yes," he said, and she took a good portion of his cock into her mouth at once. More than she had before. She was much better at fellatio than he'd expected, remarkable at it. He only hoped she enjoyed doing it as much as he enjoyed her doing it to him. He had trouble putting words to how wonderful it felt, what she did to him with her hands and mouth and tongue. She primarily sucked on and licked the head of his cock, and else wise used her mouth to get his cock wet with spit for lubricant for her hands, stroking his cock's shaft roughly. "_Fuck,_" he moaned, among other things. He made plenty of noise, struggling to get out coherent words, to tell her how well she was doing, and to keep talking dirty, which excited him also. He kept his hands to himself, except to move one of her hands to his balls. She held them consistently, and squeezed lightly occasionally, but it seemed like she mostly didn't know what to do with them. Which surprised him.

"Do you enjoy sucking that cock?" he said, watching her.

She moaned an "Mmhm," then opened her eyes and looked into his as she sucked and stroked his cock and balls.

"Nigh there," he said. "I'm gonna come all over your face."

She moaned. She liked it. He was having trouble getting used to that.

He must have clearly been about to come, because when he took a small step backward to withdraw from her mouth she was ready for it, and didn't let him get away. "I'm coming—"

She aimed his cock at her face as cum exploded out of it, but she kept her eyes open.

Sol came so hard that the first issue from his cock was a fine, wide spray, which mostly seemed to land on her face and neck in random spots. One such spot was her lower lip; it glistened. Something about that image drove him wild, and made him spurt all the harder.

Lull milked every last drop of cum out of his balls. "Give it to me," she said. "Give it to me," she said again, pleading. Every spurt was like a trebuchet launching thick white ropes.

"Droppin' justice!" he said when, after a few strong thick spurts of his cum had torn out of him, he remembered how to speak.

"Yes, baby, yes," Lull said. Only after he thought that surely his balls had _surely_ completely emptied of seed did any of it leak meekly out of his cock, and even that was Lull's doing—she dragged and squeezed it all out of him. "Drop that justice all over me," she told him.

One rope of cum had been about to hit her right eye, Sol noticed too late to do anything about it—she stroked his cock and balls throughout, so she never quite aimed his cock's head stably—but she reflexively closed that eye just in time, and he never so nearly hit her other eye. Or rather, she was aiming, so _she _never nearly hit her other eye.

Apart from her left eye, her entire face seemed to be covered in his justice, soaked in heat, Lull felt, loving it, how dirty and naughty and indulgent and biologically uselessly non-procreative it was. Even her lips and cheeks and forehead and chin had cum on them. Her neck, too. She was pretty sure some of it had run down to her tits and belly.

"Never steal again," Sol said as Lull squeezed and milked pearls of cum out of him, long after he thought his moment of pleasure over.

"I won't, sir," she said—garbled, because he'd deposited seed in her mouth too, at some point. He hadn't seen it happen, which he regretted. She swallowed the cum in her mouth. "I promise," she said. "I know better now. Thank you, sir." She loved all this. She really did, at least in this moment. He noticed: One of her hands had left him to start touching her pussy again. She wasn't done. He loved that. "This is _so_ _much_ justice," she said. She laughed. "Fuck."

He laughed too, feeling guilty. He'd destroyed her face. He saw one long rope of his cum that'd run off her face—or maybe landed between her tits—and all the way down to her belly before stopping. There was a dollop of his seed on her left thigh, too. He hadn't the faintest idea when or how it got there. "Truly," Sol said.

Lull was still stroking his cock, which was still as hard as stone on a cold day. Though it was sore, now. Lull was much busier with her other hand, on her clit; that hand's activity was frenzied. The one she was running up and down his shaft was . . . lackadaisical. And wonderful, and absentminded.

Sol wanted to stroke his cock himself too, but didn't. He loved that Lull sort of wasn't letting him. He held her head—more like supported it, and watched her please herself again with both her eyes closed. She leaned into his hand. She seemed to be getting close again. _How early did I pull out? _he wondered. It seemed like a while. He tried to let himself fully enjoy this moment, be present in it, and how wonderful she was being to him. She hadn't obsessed about playing her character as he had. He should've let himself enjoy everything more. It wasn't really about staying in character. She might not have even cared if he _hadn't_ held out this entire fucking time. He was just trying to impress her. That was . . . stubborn. Extraneous. But then, it was all for her. And she seemed extremely happy. Maybe he'd done better than he thought. Certainly better than he hoped. All this called for an extensive debrief, later. He deeply hoped that she hadn't faked or exaggerated her pleasure. She'd clearly let herself enjoy everything more than he had, however well he'd performed (or not). Good for her. He hoped she wouldn't want to call it a night and quit just yet; he certainly didn't want to.

"That was more than I expected, as well," Sol said, as Sex-Pervert Guard again. "I wanted to assure you learn from this."

"I have, sir," she said, feeding herself some of his cum and swallowing. "Very much." She was happy. Still. Even cleaning up his aftermath.

"It was a special case, obviously," he said. He looked at his cock—some of his seed was still on it. "Lick this clean," he instructed.

She did, thoroughly—he'd wanted her to be very practical, minimal, but she did it with flourishes, trying to please him, performing. He felt weird about that. But also very much enjoyed her efforts.

He disengaged and started walking about, collecting his things. He was sure that's what his character would do—not want to stick around after he was done with her.

"What should I do with all the . . . justice on my face, sir?" Lull said. She wasn't moving; she stayed right where she had been on the floor, on her knees. She didn't trust that her other eye was safe to open, so she kept both closed. Trusting him.

"Wear it!" Sol said, feeling a shade guilty again. "Proudly! Every guard in this city will know what you did, how very much you learned. They may congratulate you."

"Yes, sir," she said.

"But don't steal _a_ _thing_ more, with my mark on you," he said. "The punishment could be severe."

"I wouldn't want that, sir," Lull said, definitely wanting that.

He looked back to her, hearing a wealth of wet noises—she was touching herself furiously with both hands, now, leaning back against the bed, panting, moaning, eyes still closed, writhing, desperate.

"I want to see you," she said in-character, "but . . . your justice—"

"Got it," he said, returning to her, setting down the things he'd gathered. He wiped both of her eyes clean with his fingers. One had no cum on it, so it was easy. He put his cummy fingers to her mouth. "Lick it off." She removed one hand from her pussy to pull his fingers into her mouth and hold his hand there and lick his fingers clean. She did it gladly and thoroughly, moaning and panting and touching herself throughout. "You can safely look now."

She watched him.

"I wanna come again," she said, desperate, not in-character, looking into his eyes. She spoke like she was sharing with him a dirty secret. Which he found very thrilling.

He went to help her—knelt and reached for her pussy—but she waved him away.

"_No_," she said, whispering—another aside. "Just watch me," she continued, quietly. "From over there, like you're done with me. I want it, like this. Extra."

He didn't understand that, but felt like he'd already ruined her immersion enough and simply did as she said, not needing to understand why. He backed off, finished gathering his things, and got dressed. Mysteriously, his cock softened. He was about to begin donning his armour when she yelled, and he stopped to simply watch her—watching him—as she climaxed. It was short, but she seemed very satisfied with it. Sol looked between his legs, and was surprised to find his cock was hard again.

After she came, Lull seemed sapped of stamina, though she was still covered with his cum, and sleepily climbed up onto her bed, then, panting, collapsed on her back. Which was good, because the cum was only on her front.

He couldn't imagine what she wanted him to do. Was the fantasy scenario . . . over, now? What was supposed to happen next? What did she want him to do? Sol's character Sex-Pervert Guard had very much busted his nut—he'd simply _leave_ now, would he not? Vacate the premises, go get drunk with coworkers to forget his clearly evil actions, and brag about how awesome he was at sex, and insult and disrespect and belittle and demean a kind woman for enjoying sex only as much as he did, but like he was somehow better for it although he'd coerced her, and not she him. He was done donning his armour. Sol shrugged, put his helm back on, retrieved his shield, and went to leave Honeyside.

As Sol unlocked her home's city-side door, he heard Lull sit up in a hurry and say, "No, don't! Stop!" That was surely the character, Naïve-Yet-Slutty-Nubile-Virginal-Thief, speaking, so Sol continued. He touched the door's handle, then he heard Lull say, "Stealing is bad!"

Solitar froze. He was terrifically proud of how much of a through-and-through satiated, cummy mess he'd made Tluldir, but he wasn't about to tell anyone of it, and certainly didn't want to share the sight of it—her, a satisfied mess—with anybody. Unless she explicitly told him to.

Not moving otherwise, Sol spoke, hushed, out the side of his mouth: "Does that mean I can break character?"

"Yes!" Lull said, laughing. "And take your fucking clothes off!"

He made sure the door was locked and did so. He walked to the bed, to be close to Lull, then began undressing.

"That was _so _amazingly _good_, my love!" Lull said as he returned. "So, _so _good. I can't recall the last time I came so hard."

"To which come are you referring?" Sol said, hurriedly removing all his armour. Not so hurriedly that he'd fall over or damage something, but far from slowly.

"Fair point," she said, giggling. "I came so many times!" He heard her lying back down. "That was amazing. I'm very happy about that." She changed subject abruptly and said, "Help me eat all this cum, honeycum. I mean—all this justice," she added, with an especially naughty smile.

He chuckled. "You don't have to do that," he said, looking around for something to help clean her off with. He was sure he'd seen a towel somewhere. Maybe she had a skirt she didn't like.

"I sincerely love cum," she said. "I wasn't kidding. Or pretending. It's sexier if you help me. But if you're not comfortable with it, I still—"

"No, I'll help," he said. "I . . . don't think I have any right to expect you to like the taste of my seed."

"You don't," she said. "You're right. But I _do_ like it. Love it, actually," she said, rubbing some cum into one of her nipples, glancing down then looking back up at him, sighing, smiling.

_She does love it_, he realized. He was astonished. He couldn't believe it. "Really?" he said, stripping off his armour as quickly as he could. His cock was still hard—a pleasant surprise. Somehow he'd expected it to recede among all the mechanical, unsexy armour removal he'd been doing.

"_Yes_, really," she said. "It tastes of you. And love," she added. "And salt." They were both laughing by then. "And sweet justice."

Not naked yet but almost free of armour, Sol couldn't hold off; he used a finger to daub cum off one of her cheeks.

"Use your cock," she urged.

"I—dammit," he said, just short of taking out a dagger to cut all his clothing off.

"You're still erect!" she said, looking at his crotch. "Naughty man! Mer, I mean."

"I can't help it," he said.

"Good," she said.

He looked her over as he became nude again: She was still naked. Glowing. Covered with sweat. Her pussy soaked. Traces of her cum, on her thighs, among traces of his cum. Her pussy stretched, blown apart. His cum all over her face. There had been some on her tits and belly as well, but she'd already devoured it.

"You're incredible," he said.

"I know," she said. "So are you, love."

"Thank you, love," he said. Using his rigid cock as a tool, he scraped off of her cum that had stopped just short of her lips. "Did you . . . fake it?"

"Never," she said, grabbing the shaft of his cock and pulling it to her mouth. He didn't believe her. He'd have to ask again later. Probably days later. "Did you think I did?"

"Not in the moment," he said. "That I recall. But—our circumstances, tonight, are so unusual I didn't think I could be sure."

"I didn't fake a thing," she said. He knew she meant her love, too. "I tried to play my character, but I didn't fake any of my pleasure. Or how sated I feel now." She smiled.

"Good," he said, still processing what felt like a lot of emotions. "I'm sorry I pulled out early."

"It's fine," she said. "I'd normally hate that, but . . . somehow it was fun with you. I got to see you go through all these little feelings. At my hands. Try not to do that again, though."

"I'll be much more careful in future," he said. "Did I take that too far? At any point? The guard stuff, or saying not-nice things . . . ?"

"No," she said. "Not at all. You were flawless. I would've used our passphrase at the first instant I thought you went too far, or fucked me too hard, or whatever such unwanted excess. No. You were . . . excellent," she said, watching his cock look huge, looming large over her as he used it to scrape cum off her forehead. "_I _had no right to expect so much of you, our first night together. I'm sorry. I should've done vanilla stuff first. _Then _my fantasy-play scenario."

"It's fine," he said. "This was fun for me too."

"You delivered _and then some_," she said.

"I did well?" he said.

"_Very_ yes," she said happily, then sucked and licked cum off his cock, and gulped it down. "I know it was strange sometimes. Awkward. But you did everything I asked, and more. I'll love you forever for that." She swallowed again, making sure.

"Are you saying you love me, Tluldir?" Solitar said.

"No," Lull dismissed, seriously. She looked away. "Yes," she added, seriously.

"I love you too," Sol said. "I would've said that earlier, but I thought you might just be saying words as they came to you in the throes of carnal passion."

"I wasn't," she said. "I _was_ in the throes, as you say, but I meant that. About love. That was me talking, not the character." She looked at him appraisingly. "You look uncertain."

"Only of my performance," he said. He leaned down and kissed her.

"Stellar," she said. "You sincerely tried to give me everything I asked for. And wanted. And you succeeded. You also simply _went with_ it all, and didn't mock or insult my fantasy. I felt safe with you. You . . . gave it to me." They smiled. She kissed him. "Is that all your cum? I think I feel more."

"No, there's more," he said, standing. "I gave you that too."

She giggled. Smiling, she looked up at him and said, "Well don't stop feeding me."

He got back to it. With his cock.

"You gave me exactly what I wanted," she said as he scraped cum off one of her cheeks. "If it helps to hear that. You even stayed in character, as Sex-Pervert Guard. Who's somehow an elf. In Stormcloak-held Riften. You _went _for it—for me—even when I, the fantasy's author, laughed, or couldn't help but be slutty, and such. You were beyond perfect, my love. I mean that."

"Good," Sol said, smiling. "You're not slutty, whatever that is. And thank you. I wish I had the ego to believe all that. I wasn't awful, was I?"

"No!" she said. "Not at all! You insult me, not believing me. You were amazingly fabulous, my darling. Easily one of my top three lovers."

"I doubt that," he said. "Not you, or your word, only myself. How about this: In a few days' time, tell me if that's still true. When you can be sure."

"I'm sure now," she said, then remembered the cum he was serving her with his erect cock, grabbed his cock and licked and sucked it clean. He groaned.

"I didn't go too far, or too strange?" he said. "I felt I had to make decisions about whom my character was even as I . . . performed."

"You were flawless," she said. "You have great instincts. I rate you ten of ten sexin's. Would fuck again." They laughed; as they laughed she added, "_Will _fuck again."

"I was concerned we hadn't done enough foreplay for me to enter your sex when I did," Sol said.

"No. _Very_ well done, then," Lull said. "Well timed. And don't call it my 'sex.' Say 'pussy,' or 'cunt.'"

Sol nodded.

"I had no inclination you thought I needed more foreplay," she said.

"I've also been wanting to use my mouth on you for . . . hours," Sol said.

Lull was delighted to hear that. "The night's still young," she said, smiling. "And, no. If I've already _climaxed_, I don't need more foreplay. I may _want _some, but I won't need it. It's optional. At that point—your first . . . entry—with your cock—I wanted you to just shove it in me, hard. Brutal. I thought you were teasing me, not hesitating."

"I played my part cleverly, as well as well, then," he said, grinning.

"What's with this insecurity?" Lull blurted out. "You're a high elf, you're supposed to be saying I'm lucky you even let me touch you."

"I wanted an honest performance review," he said. "I was . . . removed from Cultured People culture very early in my life. I didn't learn the 'haughty cunt' part of my race's portfolio."

For her own laughter, Lull didn't hear his words after "part." "Good usage of 'cunt,'" she said.

"I think I used your cunt much better before, but thank you," he said. Both of them were laughing.

"You did!" she said. "I meant your use of the word, you poor fool."

"I know," he said, scraping more cum off her face with his cock.

"So . . . " Lull said. "We have this whole place to ourselves, and all the time in the world." She licked cum off the shaft of his cock. "There are more things I'd like you to do to me. And I you."


	7. Moro

**VII: Moro**

**i**

Sol was giving it to Lull from behind her, finally in full and proper doggy style, when she told him to stop. They were no longer fantasy-roleplaying, so he stopped at once, despite definitely not wanting to. He didn't disengage from her, though—she didn't say "get your cock out of me," she said "stop," which could mean simply "stop fucking me for the moment;" he stayed slightly above her in a sort of frog position to fuck her better and harder, and kept his firm hold of her—by her hip and a shoulder—and kept his cock buried in her pussy.

"Yeah?" he said.

"I want you to choke me unconscious whilst balls-deep in me," she said.

The naughtiness of the act she proposed, and that she'd trust him so much even to ask for it, made his cock surge with arousal all over again. Despite how risky such a thing was. Despite how he felt like they didn't know each other that well yet.

"Okay," he said, begrudgingly withdrawing from her—uncoupling sword from sheath.

"We can do it like this," she offered, meaning, in the same position—still offering her pussy and ass to him, needy and hungry to fuck more, looking back at him over her shoulder.

"You'll collapse," he said.

"Oh," she said, thinking quickly. She put her face down into her bed and made her ass stick up even more. "How about this?"

"I like this too, but you'll still slump down," he said, and ran out of patience. "You'll fall over." He grabbed her bodily by her hips, lifted her and rolled her onto her back. "I wanna see your face," he said as he climbed atop her. Not an extremely interesting or exotic position, but he needed to see her face. It was a much more traditionally missionary position than they'd as yet tried—instead of him standing astride the bed, with her on its edge, or anything else exciting, he put them both fully abed and lined himself up on top of her.

He went to push her legs apart, but she opened them to him just as his hands met her thighs. He liked that, and groaned at how much her welcome turned him on.

He pushed back inside of her slowly.

She groaned, looking into his eyes.

He made as if to start withdrawing from her to then pump back in, but halted himself—also teasing her—to say, "I have an idea: Prove to me you deserve that, before I do it."

"Yeah?" she said, loving this, smiling, holding his waist with her thighs. She put her hands behind his neck and locked her fingers together, holding his head down where she could kiss him.

Sol withdrew almost completely, then slammed his cock all the way back inside of her. Her body jerked up on the bed, then her tits followed course, jiggling and bouncing and eventually settling. He loved that. He'd forgot he'd be able to see her tits clearly in this position; it was amazing to see them, surprising somehow. Lull herself just short of yelled from the pleasure and pain.

"_Baby!_" she said afterward, removing a hand from the back of his neck to stroke his face.

He pushed hair out of her face and said, "Yeah," answering her earlier question. In response to the "baby" he smiled and kissed her softly, pulling his cock back out some. She kissed him back aggressively; he broke the kiss by putting an open hand on her neck, which stopped her from moving with him, but then he pushed—pushed her head back down to the bed's surface and then some. He did it gently, if such a thing could be called gentle. Lull moaned from the contact, and from what he specifically did.

Sol didn't keep a hand at her neck to choke her, which she'd thought and hoped he'd do at once. She glanced down to where she would've seen his arm leading to her neck and then back up to his eyes like, "Go on, choke me." He only kept himself close, above her, and didn't move, looking into her eyes.

He slammed back into her pussy, hilting—shoving himself balls-deep again. She moaned—not like she was trying to perform for him, but like she couldn't hold back an expulsion of the pleasure she was feeling. It was filthy. The loud sounds their bodies made together were equally filthy, and she loved them. So did he. He cocked an eyebrow, trying to ask, "And what are you going to do to prove you're worthy?" without saying it, but she didn't quite get it. Or perhaps didn't want to. She was waiting for him to do . . . something. He shrugged and slowly withdrew his cock from her, then slowly pumped it back in, then repeated.

She watched his cock stab into her a few more times before pursing her lips and saying, "But, lover, however will I prove to you I'm worthy of getting choked while you're balls-deep in my cunt?"

He grinned and said, "How should I know?" as if he couldn't imagine what she might do, meanwhile slowly and softly penetrating her, then withdrawing, then penetrating again. "You might start by getting on top."

She smiled, looking pleased with him, and a moment later grabbed him by the shoulders and started leaning to the side. She didn't try to force him to roll over, as he'd hoped she would. That would've been fun. Maybe she didn't feel very comfortable taking control with him. He wanted to feel actively wanted, like she'd make more of an effort, be more involved. He rolled his eyes and then both of them over, tossing Lull atop himself.

"What is it?" she said, sensing disappointment. She caressed his face and gently rode his cock, sighing. "Lover?"

"I hoped you'd make me roll over," he said, then groaned at their genitals meeting.

"I don't think I have the strength to do that," she said.

"Why not try?" he said.

Lull looked abashed. "Can we start over?"

"Sure," Sol said, and rolled them back to how they were before. Lull laughed as they re-arranged.

Lull tried to roll Sol over, and nearly did. He just looked at her, blinking, his cock sheathed in her—motionless.

Lull tried again, exerting herself this time, and it was enough.

Exaggerating for fun, Sol threw himself off the bed. He timed it so well Lull believed for an instant that she'd thrown him herself. She laughed, immediately realizing she hadn't, and how funny the whole thing looked. She missed his cock already. She kept laughing as he hit the floor. With slightly too much force—his momentum rolled him into the wall. Lull couldn't see what happened to his cock throughout the farce of it, but she hoped it was unharmed. She'd been watching his face and eyes, watching him feign surprise, and suddenly feared he'd broken his cock.

"Sol!" she called out to him, sitting up, worried about his cock.

He rose at a relaxed pace, laughing, unharmed. Which got her laughing again. She replayed the incident in her mind's eye, all the while using her two normal eyes to visually check on Sol's cock: it was fine—not bent painfully or awkwardly like a broken limb, no blood, and still quite erect. A rigid staff. Glistening with her moisture.

"Did your cock have that bend in it before?" she said, honestly concerned. From the base on his pelvis, his cock was perfectly straight for some length, but then it turned upward by some degrees, and twisted maybe two degrees, then went perfectly straight all the way up to its lovely, slightly imposingly mushrooming head.

"What bend?" he said. For an instant she thought him completely serious—she honestly couldn't recall if his cock had been bent or perfectly straight before his farcically dramatic tumble. Then Sol smiled, and she knew it for a jape. "Sorry. You looked so affected by that!"

"I care about you!" Lull said. "A lot!" He crawled back onto the bed, to her. She welcomed him. "You _and _your cock," she added.

They laughed.

"I'll try not to joke about such things," he said. "Forgive me."

"I do, my love," she said, kissing him. "Stupid."

He noticed they'd reverted to missionary with him on top, though he hadn't put his cock in her yet. He restarted, lie next to her on his back and beckoned her atop him.

Lull began crawling on top of Sol even before he gestured for her to. She mounted him, putting her thighs tight against his sides, and then she mounted his cock, with his hand guiding it smoothly back inside of her. She sighed, quivering. He held her hips—

Then she smiled with a better idea—eluding him, dismounting, crawling backward until her head was even with his cock. She saw excitement take hold of his eyes anew—he smiled—as he figured out what she was doing. She smiled right back and gave his cock a kiss: sealing her lips around its one eye, and not sucking but rather driving her tongue into that opening. He moaned loudly. She gave his cock a few more naughty, lingering kisses. She loved to hear such sweet noises from him. To earn them, to give him that pleasure. She loved any noises he made, but especially ones of pleasure, and she loved exclamations of utter pleasure the most. She earned them. She wondered how long he could hold out against her using her mouth and hands directly on his cock. Not very long, she wagered. She wondered how hard she could make him come.

She didn't test him . . . much. For now. She looked back up into his eyes—elated; she was quite happy as well—and found a comfortable position for her body. Her pussy had to be out of his reach, unfortunately. Then she got good spit from deep down her throat and spat on her hand and lubricated Sol's cock with it, all over, all along and around the shaft as well as the proud, broad head. She worked him ferociously, but only because she wasn't going to be doing it for long—until she thought he was close—then put one hand on his thigh and stroked his length slowly and lightly with her other hand, and pushed his cock against her cheek so he'd see her cheek bulge out—she looked into his eyes as she did—then ripped it out of her mouth. Which produced a louder pop than she'd expected.

He was a great cocksuck-ee throughout—moaning, not forcing her to do anything, saying filthy things, telling her what was good, encouraging her, loving her, staying involved. Because of that, instead of following her first impulse, she thought she'd both tease and reward him with something she'd like and which she thought he'd find very exciting. She said, "Do you like my ass, my love?'

"I like your everything, my love," he said truthfully. He sounded like his entire body was still ringing from her fabulous ministrations. He simply kept his hands at his side, didn't try to push his cock down her throat. She appreciated that more than she could say. But didn't want to try saying so.

"I didn't expect an answer half so good as that," she said, groaning, melting. In one stroke without even touching her, he seemed to have halved the time it would take her to come again. She felt loved. And it would be much better this time, too.

She kissed his cock—no tongue this time, no lingering—and climbed onto him, mounted him . . . backward, with her ass pointing at him so he could see it, instead of basically a woman-on-top missionary, which had been her first impulse (that or just making him come in her mouth) but which seemed dull now. He held his cock up to meet her and she sank down onto it, watching her cunt swallow his cock.

Lull fucked Sol by moving back and forth, at first, but after a moment (maybe three minutes) wanted a more . . . _raw_ feel, wanted him to be able to touch more of her, and so she sat atop him, making their bodies form a sort of cross together. She started bouncing up and down on him. Her bed was good enough quality, and of solid enough construction, that it didn't squeak annoyingly, but the vigorousness they exhibited atop it still produced some noise.

After a minute she was able to ignore the noises her body made, and not feel self-conscious. Sol graciously offered to spank her ass, but she told him not to (not yet, she didn't say)—she wanted to feel _only _his cock in her, didn't even want his hands on her. Well, she did want his hands on her, she always would, but for a moment she wanted _only_ to feel cock.

After that moment, she changed her mind: She said, "Grab my ass." He did: He grabbed as much ass as his hands could hold, which was a good deal of it, and squeezed and rubbed and kneaded her flesh like he owned it. _I'm going to marry this man_, she thought, moaning loudly when she meant not to moan at all.

"Slap that ass, baby!" she said as she resumed fucking him. He was smart, he would eventually have figured out through telepathy that she wanted him to spank her, but she needed that sharp smack pain-and-pleasure feeling _now_, and wanted to hear the roughness of their coupling now, not eventually. She wanted to feel some danger, too, like he could hurt her if he wanted to, but chose not to. She put a hand to her cunt and started stimulating her clitoris, which Sol admittedly could have reached—but she wanted to do it herself, for now. She wanted to know he was behind her, enjoying her body, getting off, but also have him be nothing but a disembodied cock and a force on her ass—a source of intense, wonderful feelings, a pleasure toy for her enjoyment, happily at her disposal and no one else's.

Sol enthusiastically did as she bade him. She kept forgetting how good he was, how very well he knew his way around a woman's body—she wanted maybe ten minutes of this, her fucking his cock specifically more than her fucking Sol himself, and him slapping her ass and watching her backside, but then she felt her release impend after what couldn't have been more than five minutes.

"Am I worthy, my love?" she said, meaning of his riding him—up and down on his cock. She loved this, but with orgasm so close, wanted to get fucked and choked out _now_. She needed it. "Of—"

"_Fuck_ yes, my love," he said, moaning and digging his fingers into her ass. He moved one hand to her waist and held tightly, but then released his other hand and spanked her hard with it. His nails were too short for her to feel them; she might've liked them to be longer. Extra sharpness. Extra marks on her body that she could see.

"How do you wish to choke me, my love?" she said.

"Get on your back," he said. "Up here."

"Okay," she said. She stopped fucking and dismounted him abruptly, excited to move on, and concerned about time. As she climbed off his cock, he spanked her again. It was perhaps cursory, but also perfect. She loved him all over again for that one touch. He loved her. He wanted her to feel good.

Lull lay at the head of the bed, with a pillow beneath her own head. Sol took the bed's other pillow and put it beneath her ass, then sheathed himself in her again. Slowly. Wonderfully.

"This is risky, so let's test it first," he said—rocking his cock in and out of her as he spoke. Which was extremely distracting.

She dug her nails into one of his arms above the elbow and said, "Stop fucking me. I can't understand your words."

He stopped, and even pulled his cock out of her. "Sorry," he said. She sighed sadly at the loss of his cock in her. He noticed that depression, but didn't put his cock back inside her. "If you ever want me to stop, or change your mind, or anything, as I'm choking you, just push me away—all you have to do is _start_ to push my hands or fingers off your throat—okay? Or tap on my arms or hands. If I feel that, I'll stop."

"Okay," she said. "Please just get balls-deep and choke me, baby."

"I will," he said. "Just checking. If you can speak, all you need say is 'No' or 'Stop.' All right?"

"Gods yes," she said.

"You're sure you want me to choke you," he said. "As I fuck you."

"I'm sure that's _exactly_ what I fucking want," she said enthusiastically, smiling, enjoying how filthy all this was—not the specific words either of them said so much as what they were using them for. She grabbed his cock, still out in open air and unsheathed, and stroked it and tried to guide it back into herself. "Yes. Now fuck me."

He did.

He quickly found a rhythm and intensity with her—not all the way in yet; he couldn't help teasing her, keeping something in reserve—holding her with both his hands on her neck. Not cutting off her air yet, though she already felt very restricted and loved it. Especially with him on top, that was a strong choice. He pulled his cock all the way out of her a few times, and pretended it was an accident each time, though it never was. She whined whenever it came out.

"I really want you to choke me, my love," she said.

"I know," he said, still finding a perfect rhythm.

"Meaning, make it so I can't breathe?" she said.

He was looking down at her pussy attentively. The space on their bodies where the two of them became one. He was doing a great job fucking her, just not choking her—

His thumbs closed down on her and she knew at once he had her _precisely_ where she wanted him to. He had for some time, he just hadn't closed off her breathing yet. She didn't understand why not. To be sure, she moaned, because she needed to relieve that pressure, then she tried to breathe and couldn't. It was always mortally frightening, at first. Her body immediately panicked—and spasmed—though her mind didn't. She loved it. He knew exactly what he was doing.

Sol must've seen the calm in her eyes, but he surely felt her body panic as well. He responded so quickly he'd ceased closing her airways before she even realized quite what her body had done. He stopped fucking her, too. He really cared about her. He didn't want to hurt her. She loved that. But it was a boundary between her and the pleasure she wanted: She needed to reign in her body, or she wasn't going to get what she wanted. "Are you all right?" he said, concerned. She adored that. He couldn't hurt her if he wanted to. Well, no, he could. She enjoyed that. Trust—he wouldn't hurt her—with some danger. That body, those muscles; he could snap her in half if he felt like it. And he was all hers, at this very moment.

"I'm great," she said, ecstatic. "Much better than all right. Don't stop."

"You thought I didn't know how to do it, didn't you?" he said, grinning.

"I was—No. Yes," she sputtered. He giggled. She couldn't help but smile. She went on, "I—no, I thought you didn't know how."

"Do you trust that I know, now?" he said, mischievous.

"I do," she said, delighted. Already breathing quicker in anticipation. She wanted to look into his eyes when she started coming. She'd have to fight to keep them open. Unless she blacked out too early.

"Did you like how I did that?" he said. "When I actually choked you."

"Yeah," she said in a tone of "get on with it."

"I could do it with just two fingers," he said. "But I thought that may feel . . . paltry, to you. I thought you'd like to feel hands around your throat."

"Yourhands," she said. "Yes. You thought perfectly correctly." She wriggled her hips and clenched the muscles in her cunt to please him.

He groaned, closed his eyes for an instant, then said, "Very well."

He put his hands around her neck. Somehow they wound all the way around, she noticed, or they felt like they did, anyhow. She knew the act was risky, but she trusted him with her life, not to harm her or even say an unkind word to her. He'd demonstrated those things beyond her satisfaction. People had tried to force her to learn how to fight and move and live in various types of armour in her youth; even then, she felt safer with his hands around her throat than she would've with a steel gorget around instead.

"How close are you to coming?" he said.

"Close," she admitted, smiling darkly. She liked that she could give him an honest appraisal—he wasn't going to quit, or something. At first, even with him, she'd felt compelled to hold out as long as she could each time she came. Now she knew she didn't need to—he enjoyed her pleasure, and it just kept getting better.

"I thought so," he said. "Good. I want us to come together. If we can. I'm near. I'm going to try to go fast, to meet your pleasure, okay? I'll choke you—and hold it—as you're about to come. I can hold off 'till then."

"That's perfect," she said, groaning, sighing with need for him. She licked her lips, needing to feel more.

Sol didn't hesitate to fuck her to her climax. He went fast—Lull enjoyed it very much, though a perfect pace for her would've been slower—for a moment, them bottomed out—just how she wanted him to. A true gentleman. She was so close to coming, and she told him so when she could speak. She sounded froggy. He said he was close as well. He choked her on and off throughout, in short spurts, sometimes not as long as she wanted him to even as a tease, but sometimes almost too long—until her vision started to blur and darken, until her head felt full of stars, of points of Aetherius—but he always let up before she would've had him stop. He was damn good at choking a person. He could tell when she wanted him to stop. She didn't think she was indicating as much very well. She realized now, that intermittence was part of him building her up to her pleasure. He didn't want to let her get bored, or too accustomed to the sensation.

A few seconds before her roiling pleasure exploded, she told him to choke her—not that he wasn't already, she just needed him to do it now for her to come—and he did, not even needing her guidance—and something about her saying those words, telling him to do it to her, excited her even more. She loved dirty talk so much. But you had to follow it up with dirty actions. She expelled her breath rapidly, coming, and the danger and lack of air took her orgasm much, much higher. She realized he was coming too as she felt a strong spurt of volcanic heat deep inside of her that could only have come from him, as she noticed his thrusts slowing somewhat and becoming uneven, then—

Lull's body kept spasming, but she stopped exclaiming her pleasure. He didn't realize quite how much she was controlling her own body until after her eyes closed—the pleasure racking her body made it try to jump all over the place, made it difficult to fuck her and not let his cock slip out of her. It was like she was trying to jump off the bed, and then get his cock even deeper into her—erratic, random. He let up, released her airways and her throat, but couldn't stop himself thrusting into her again and again—his own pleasure was upon him. For one long instant he felt horribly guilty—she was truly unconscious, yet his cock still hurled more and more of his seed into her, kept going—but he didn't feel any real fear until his orgasm ended, abruptly. Sometimes it was like that, a very clean-cut end to his climax. Odd. Sometimes he'd feel his cock cease emitting cum but the waves of pleasure would stay at a proverbial high tide for minutes afterward, it would seem never to stop. After his pleasure ceased, all at once, he panicked for an instant, didn't know what to do. Only later did he notice that his cock yielded its erection almost at once following his pleasure. In the moment, he tapped her cheek lightly, instinctively, as if that would do anything at all . . . and then his knowledge and experience, and rationality itself, reawakened in him and he checked her neck for a pulse—found it at once, strong, firm, steady, even. She was fine, only unconscious. Precisely what she'd asked for. He still felt as if he'd done something wrong. Mayhap he should've waited until he knew her better physically to do something so risky, no matter how badly she wanted it, or seemed to.

Around ten seconds—which felt like about sixteen minutes—later, after Sol noticed his cock had gone soft and had withdrawn the limp flesh from Lull's lovely smashed pussy, and watched a rivulet of his cum spill out of her—and felt his cock very quickly re-harden—Lull regained consciousness, and she was still ecstatic. She glowed, hugely satisfied, and very satisfied with him as well.

She hummed, happy. "That was _astounding_," she said quite loudly—her volume seemed like an accident—then pulled him down to her mouth violently, and kissed all over his face. "Thank you, Sol."

"You're welcome," he said. "You're . . . you feel well?"

"Better than well!" she said. She looked down to her pussy—where for most of the night they'd been joined, but weren't now. "Why'd you pull out? Didn't you come in me?"

" . . . Long story," he said, definitely back to full hardness. "I should've pulled out before. I'm sorry."

"No, I wanted that," she said. "I'd be disappointed if you _hadn't _come in my pussy. How long was I out?"

"You'll get pregnant," he said.

"Maybe. We can't be sure of that," she said. "I may not."

"There's a bucketful of my cum in you," he said. "And I'm . . . rather virile."

"Gods, surely not _that _much," Lull said—they were both laughing uproariously by then. They kissed. She leaned up and looked at her pussy. With, now, another thick white line of his spunk—more like an oddly-shaped puddle now—leading out of her, down to the bed. Hardly any had spilled out of her. It was so very naughty. That they'd wasted some of it made it more exciting, more naughty, somehow.

"It felt like a lot," he said.

"More than you got on my face earlier?" she said.

He smiled. "I don't believe so," he said. "A sizable volume, nonetheless."

She giggled and kissed him.

"Do you want children?" Sol said, meaning, "conceived this night, right now?," not "ever?" He'd lost his humor for a moment.

"Fuck no," Lull said. "Don't panic! I'll just have Elgrim brew me a draught."

"If you're comfortable with that," Sol said. "It's your decision."

"I am," Lull said, dismissing the matter. "Actually, I could brew myself one. Should. If I went to him, the entire Guild would know by the next day."

"Okay," Sol said.

"You're so sweet," Lull said, kissing over his chest. They lie facing one another. "You'd be a father—a real father—to any children I had, wouldn't you? Of your seed."

"I would," he said. "I'm embarrassed. One small movement on my part would've spared us that conversation. I apologize."

"Not _that_ small. And don't you dare!" she said. "If I wanted you to spill your seed elsewhere, I would've said so."

"I understand that," he said. "I'm saying: whatever you desired, it was still my decision to _not _pull out. Until after I exploded in you. My responsibility."

"Don't become somber and ruin my fun, my love," she said, part-stern and part-joking, both. She kissed the corner of his mouth. "If it wasn't now, I'd have asked or forced you to come in me eventually. I _love_ that feeling."

"You could feel it?" he said.

"Before I blacked out, that is," she said. "Yes." They laughed. He grabbed one of her tits and played with it, idly squished it in his hands, mostly without even looking at it. "I might not always feel every spurt, but I usually feel some of them. I felt . . . one or two? before I passed out. Your cum was so hot."

"Okay," he said, uncomfortable. "I know women can feel that—I wondered if you could, that time."

"I did," she said, smiling.

"How was that, for you?" he said.

"Flawless," she said.

"Truly?" he said. "I'm not asking for praise. Really. I ask so I can do it better the next time you want it."

"You couldn't do any better," she said. "You can _only _do worse." She stroked one of his breasts, looking at his chest. She wondered how much it would hurt if they tried anal, with her receiving.

"So I _have to _disappoint you, now?" he said. They laughed.

"Yes you do," she said, laughing.

"Maybe I could do it better if I bent you over a desk," he said. "Or put you face-down on a bed, or some such." She had this huge, filthy grin—she saw what he was getting at. He smiled too. "You seem to like when I take you from behind."

"Do I?" she said, stroking his cock briefly before turning her back to him so they could cuddle as spoons. His cock was hard again. She hadn't noticed it hardening; the last time she remembered looking, it was still soft. He groaned at her touch—_So responsive_, she thought—and once her ass was pressing hard against his pelvis he didn't wait for a prompt: He knew what she wanted before she was in position, and so he sheathed his cock in her cunt as she began to settle.

She moaned, low and dangerous, and, as he withdrew then pushed back in, she started throwing her ass back at him at the same moment when he withdrew to thrust back into her. He clearly didn't mind that he'd be feeling his own sloppy seconds, as men sometimes described that feeling to them.

"I should've played harder to get, shouldn't I?" he said, one arm of his under her, wrapping around her to grasp and squeeze one of her tits; his other arm above her, also wrapping about her, two of its fingers rubbing around her clit.

"What?" she said.

"About choking you," he said. "I teased you, but I didn't make you wait."

"You made me wait for _so _long!" she said, adjusting his pace with the fingers about her clit—slower, more firm—and holding his other hand down on her tit, trying to ask for him to be rougher there.

"I know," he said. "I meant, I should've said no to it tonight altogether, and made you wait a day or two."

"I'm not gonna be able to fuck you for more than a day straight," she said. "I'm in poor shape."

"Not _that_ poor. I wouldn't ask for a fuckfest that long," he said, then thrusted into her powerfully. She yelped, loving it. "Though I might want such."

"You'll have to exercise with me," she said, abashed at her lack of fitness. He hadn't seen her genuinely be bashful in . . . as long as he could remember.

"Done," he said like it was that easy.

She looked back at him, looked over the knees-weakeningly firm wealth of muscles about his form. Especially in the arms and chest, those spots seemed to arouse her most at the moment.

She believed him.

**ii**

During one of a few brief breaks in their lovemaking, Lull asked Sol, "So how'd you get the prestigious Nordic title of 'the Naughty?'" She'd just crawled back up to the top of the bed and patted the spot next to her, for him to occupy.

Sol grinned, lying aside her. She nuzzled as close to him as she could get. Incredulously, Sol answered her, "You can do your job hyper-competently for years, but fuck _one _apprentice alchemist who's also the de facto jarl's daughter, and _that's _what people remember you for."

Lull laughed throughout.

**iii**

Lull pushed against Sol's pelvis, his cue to stop fucking her face. So he stopped. She pulled her head back off his cock and said, "Can I take a break for a moment?"

"Sure," he said, not minding at all. She feared he would.

"My jaw hurts," she said.

"I'm so sorry, my love," he said, holding and caressing her face, adoring her, kissing her. "I had no idea."

"Don't apologize for that," she said. "I didn't stop because I didn't want to. I simply _have to_ now." She massaged her jaw.

"Want me to go down on you?" he said.

"Again? Already?" she said.

"I only have once tonight!" he said. "Maybe twice."

"For an _hour!_" she said.

He looked very confused. Like he didn't understand the point she was making at all.

"You don't want me to eat your pussy?" he said.

She shook her head. "Lay with me. I wanna feel your arms around me."

He did.

She held his hand, rather than backing between his arms. He hadn't expected that but didn't protest her changing her mind. She felt so overly warm she didn't get right up against him the way she desired to. And he seemed to pick up on that, because he respected that distance.

"Can we talk about . . . us?" she said with audible discomfort. He wanted to joke, that the discomfort was her tummy feeling full from all the cum he'd hurled into her, but couldn't. She seemed rather serious.

"Sure," he said and kissed her hand. "I didn't want us to part ways without speaking of it. Us."

"I don't want us to part ways," she said.

"Ever?" he said, raising an eyebrow, joking.

She smiled but didn't laugh. "Never," she said, then, "I've been . . . very attracted to you since you first arrested—caught—me."

"I don't know how I feel about that," he said.

"Well who cares," she said with a straight face—but somehow he saw through it, or maybe wasn't bothered by it, and he giggled. Which broke her, and she laughed. He laughed with her. "I'm—When I saw you in Winecocks, I resolved to merely proposition you. I thought I'd get fucked. Like, once. Less than an hour altogether. This, what we're doing, I didn't think we'd even still be going at it. But I love that we are."

He smiled.

"I really like you," she said. "I didn't expect this."

"Neither did I," he said.

"Is that . . . okay with you?" she said.

"I believe so," he said, "depending on what you mean by 'that.'"

"Are you comfortable with my feelings for you," she stated, "is what I'm trying to ask."

"I am," he said.

"I like you very much, and I think you like me very much too," she said. "I want to see you. More. And then keep seeing you."

"I'd like that," he said.

She went from happy to glowing. "Good," she said, smiling. "I want to go get dinner with you, and go on adventures with you! All those things. Would you like that?"

"I would," he said, smiling along with her.

Not feeling so stiflingly warm anymore, Lull got very close with Sol. He moved closer to her as soon as he noticed her moving. She climbed roughly half on top of him, and put one of her legs between his.

"Would you be willing to—" she began.

"Does your jaw still hurt?" he interrupted.

"Not really," she said, then understood it had been a joke and laughed. "You dirty elf!" She smacked his chest.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"No you're not," she said.

"No, I'm not," he said.

"Do you . . . " she began. "Would you be willing to leave the city with me, once in a while?"

"I would," he said.

"But you've lived here for years," she said. "I thought you would say 'It's me or the city!' or somesuch shite."

"'Years' is a long time for me to be in one place," he said. "I think I needed stability when I moved here. I don't anymore."

She smiled, kissed him. The kiss quickly got naughty.

**iv**

Sol kept meaning to ask Lull if she'd be willing to try tits-fucking, or tit-wanking or whatever else Skyrimmers called mammary intercourse, but he kept getting caught up in pleasing her and forgetting the idea.

Holding Lull up bodily, and standing himself, with his cock erect and sheathed in Lull's pussy, Sol was part-fucking her and part-throwing her body around and effectively making her fuck him. She'd dared him to do it, then he'd done it easily and she'd revealed she'd been certain he could do it and had just wanted him to be as excited about it as her. They laughed and kept fucking. "You're so good," she said loudly as their coupling intensified.

A few minutes went by, then Sol got an idea, stopped their activity, and said, "Can we try tit-fucking?"

"Sure," she said. "What is that?"

"Do you mind if I show you?" he said.

"Not at all," she said.

He dumped her on the bed, thereby withdrawing his cock from her, and as she squealed happily—a new position! a new sex act!—he said, "I'm going to _kind of_ sit on you. Is that all right?"

"So long as you don't put your weight on me," she said.

He mounted her. She'd have great difficulty moving if he didn't move, but none of his weight was actually on her, it was all on his legs, probably mostly the knees. As he got into position above her, he said, "Now I'm gonna put my cock between your tits."

"Okay," she said, smiling. "Oh! I've heard of this! I didn't know there was a word for it. At Winecocks. I've never tried it."

He put his cock approximately between her tits and fine-adjusted until he was in the right place, then grabbed her tits and enveloped his cock with them, tightly, wrapped them around himself. The sight of it alone made him want to blow his load at once, though he was some time from another climax.

Sol fucked Lull's tits.

On the third thrust, Lull got awkwardly self-conscious suddenly and said, "Are my titties big enough for this?" She looked from his cock to her tits, smashed together around it, to his eyes, and back to cock and tits. "Lover?" she added. He looked like he was enjoying it.

"They are _plenty_," he said. "More than enough." He kept fucking her tits. Still enjoying it a good deal. Her tits weren't so big that his cock completely disappeared beneath them, but if he'd wanted that he would've sought someone out for their tits specifically—probably Lilivah at Winecocks. Or . . . that other one. Lull couldn't recall any more names, she was too in the moment, enjoying however long she'd have with Sol. He was probably doing and feeling the same.

"You like my tits?" she said.

"I _very __much_ do," he said, thrusting.

"I don't like my nipples," she said.

"I _love _your nipples," he said. "While I _think_ I can see why you might feel that way, I fervently disagree."

That wasn't enough for her, Sol noticed; she was still caught up in the feelings of self-consciousness and insecurity. He could relate. She liked watching him fuck her, maybe even liked watching him fuck her tits, watching him move and his muscles clench and release; she smiled filthily pretty much whenever she looked at his cock; but she wasn't into _this_.

He stopped sliding his cock between her tits, let them go, crawled down on her and left his mouth at her chest. "What's wrong?" she said as he moved.

"Nothing," he said. He kissed around her tits, from the area's general wealth of plain milky heavy flesh to areola to nipple and randomly among all the different little parts of her anatomy. She adored the attention. And that he enjoyed her body enough to want to do that, unbidden. "You don't feel great about your body."

"I do feel great about my body," she said.

"As you should," he said, still making his progress around her tits. He kissed on and around her nipples indiscriminately. "And, fine; you don't feel great about your tits."

"They could be bigger," she said, pushing them together—teasing him. She felt okay about her tits. She looked into his eyes, smiling, still playing with her tits. She wanted him to talk up her tits.

He groaned at that. "Your tits are amazing," he said. "I gather it's your nipples you dislike."

She let go of her tits and looked away. "Yeah."

He kissed her, but only on her nipples, often going between them. "I disagree," he murmured. "Poppycock." He found it difficult to pry his mouth or attention away from her tits.

She moaned.

He cupped and fondled her tits, paying very close attention to both of them as equally as he could manage.

"I see that _you _like them," she said. He loved them. "I—ah—" She gasped as he sucked on one of her nipples. "—appreciate that, but it doesn't change how I feel about myself."

He gave the other nipple a prolonged suck—she moaned—and then he broke off with a pop to say, "I've seen a lot of you tonight—your radiant inner beauty, your confidence." He gave the other nipple a prolonged suck. "I'm not trying to change your image of yourself. At best I mean to offer contradictory evidence."

"What are you—" she said. He cut her off by hastily covering her lips with a few of his fingers. He meant to put the whole hand over her mouth but somehow only a few fingers reached the target area. She stopped speaking once his fingers reached her lips, then moaned openly, wantonly, with pleasure as he sucked. She took his fingers—two of them, he noticed—into her mouth as if she simply needed to suck something, to be doing something with her mouth.

"I _love _your nipples," he said just after biting one of them.

She yelped in pleasure and pain. She loved it. She pushed him back into her tits greedily.

"As I was saying," he said, substituting his mouth with highly skilled, nimble fingers. He forgot where he'd left off and restarted. "As I said, I've seen a lot of you tonight. I love all of it save this nonsense about your nipples. That's the first bit of stupidity I've witnessed tonight."

She took his fingers out of her mouth to say, "You calling me stupid?"

"I am," he said, then sucked on one of her nipples rather harshly.

She yelled.

He broke off of that nipple with an obscenely chaste kiss, then did the same to her other nipple.

"_Fuck_," she said, arching her back to press her flesh into him. "That is _goooood_." She dragged the word out.

"Does it change your mind?" he said.

"Not at all—" she said, though before she could come to a full stop he bit down on one of her nipples again. She yelped.

"Well," he said, re-arranging himself and—Lull screamed—sucking her other nipple whilst also putting his cock back in her pussy. He felt her lubricants gush at his re-entrance. She screamed again, but more.

"Sol!" she called out.

He put two fingers, deliberately this time, over her lips again. She'd been holding them a few hairs' breadths away from her mouth in the interregnum. Feeling her hot quickened breaths on them was lovely, but not as lovely as he believed it could be for her if he asserted some dominance. He was right; she moaned loudly as he reasserted dominance a bit. She submitted with glee. Then she started sucking his fingers again, as if they were a cock. That was surprisingly stimulating for him.

"Well," he said, balancing carefully on his elbows so he could shut her up with the fingers of one hand, work on her nipples with the other, fuck her pussy, speak, and also not fall on her, all at the same time. "I require you, then, to forget your opinion of your nipples—" He suckled each briefly. She keened above him. "—entirely. You don't have to replace it with mine, so long as you forget it."

"Perhaps I will," she said through his fingers.

"Shut up and come for me," he said.

She did.

**v**

Sol hadn't reached orgasm in the doggy-style position with Lull in the longest time, he noticed, in the doggy-style position, after he finished filling Lull's cunt with his cum all over again. He spanked her ass hard and thrust into her a few more times. He'd told her he wanted to pull out and spray his seed on her ass and her back, but she'd told him she didn't care and that she needed to feel him spurt inside of her.

"Don't stop," she urged him. "I'm about to come!"

It strained him not to yell from the pleasure—his cock didn't hurt or feel sore, but after this release it felt exceedingly sensitive, for whatever reason—but he pushed himself to please her, which made it easy. He couldn't stay cool and silent, though.

He leaned down to rub her clit and she collapsed forward, stabbing his pelvis with her ass but burying her face in a pillow and letting her voice loose, screaming as she came. When he wasn't working on her clit, he held both her tits, fucking her throughout.

Seemingly a minute later she told him, "Stop stop stop," in quick succession.

So he did.

"I need a break," she said.

"Sorry," he said, feeling like he'd done something wrong.

"No you're great," she said in a quick breath. "My cunt's just sore. And full of cum," she added, giggling, rolling onto her back, scooting down to lay her head on the pillow she'd muffled her pleasure with.

Sol climbed off the bed and—

"Where the _fuck_ do you think you're going?" Lull demanded, though she knew before she'd even said all of it.

He'd opened the door leading out of Honeyside, to Riften's harbor in Lake Honrich.

Lull couldn't help but check whether the sky was dark, while he was looking that way with the door open anyway. It was still dark out.

"Oh," Sol said, facing the world outside, and closed the door.

"What?" she said.

"I thought Magnus would be rising," he said. "But it's still dark out."

"What time is it, d'you reckon?" she said. She didn't feel tired. Just needed to catch her breath.

"Hour of the Cock, I believe," he said.

She giggled. "Let's rename it 'Hour of the Cunt.'"

"I intend to," he said, walking back to her bed.

She laughed. He smiled. "Cunts are better," she said.

"Vastly so, yes," he said, lying with her. "I wish women were in charge of everything. Rather than men."

"You're just saying that to get more of mine," she said.

"No," he said. "I should drink more water." He rose again and searched the wide area they'd strewn his clothes over for his own sling bag.

"The lake's right there," she said, pointing outside, before she figured out what he was looking for.

"People dump garbage and nightsoil into that lake," he said. "My water's purified."

"I'll never get that lake-water in my mouth or have fun in it ever again," she said. "Thanks," she added sarcastically.

"You're welcome," he said, faking sincerity. He'd found his waterskin and took a deep drink.

"Can I drink some of your water?" she said.

"I got some water for ya right here," Sol said, grabbing his balls and his cock, which was still harder than most fully-grown trees.

Lull laughed.

He returned to bed with the waterskin. She drank of it.

"My love?" Lull said after a second pull of his water.

"Yes, my love?" he said.

"How do people fight in armour?" she said.

"With practice," he said. She laughed. "And some difficulty."

"I'm serious," she said. "And how do you counteract it?"

"There are several general approaches, as I think of it," he said. "The simplest—in the moment, meaning—is magick. Cook their flesh, use its isolation and cumbersome nature against them. Or freeze them. Or summon caltrops inside the armour. Or turn their sweat to ice. Or fire."

Lull looked appalled.

"I'm not advocating for pain," he said. "I mean when failing to counteract someone else's armour may be your death. Those who rely on armour instead of agility or dexterity would, frankly, deserve it."

"You wear armour," she said.

"Only for my job, and at the jarl _and _Maven's explicit orders," he said. "I'd sooner not. Even then I don't rely on it. It's for appearances—uniform."

"The uniform has mail in it," she said. "Yours doesn't. How is _that_ uniform?"

"Helm too," he said. "I reached a compromise with the women who rule The Rift."

"You didn't ask _my_ permission for it," she said.

"The Thieves Guildmaster has no power," he said. "It's Laila and Maven." He looked up at her—she wasn't happy. "I'm sorry you're learning this from me."

"Thieves from all over Skyrim pay me homage!" she said.

"Words, but no respect or fealty," he said. "Words are wind."

Lull went quiet.

"Test it yourself," Sol told Lull. "Tell Maven you'll pay her less per moon-turn. Tell her you want Maul out of the Ragged Flagon."

"Dirge," she corrected.

"What?" he said.

"Maul guards Maven. Dirge is the Flagon's bouncer," she said.

"They're the same person!" he said. Lull at once understood his joke and burst into laughter.

"Do I really have no power?" she said, sad.

"Really, no," he said. "You can't change anything. As the guildmaster, I mean. You yourself could. Find out yourself, though. I know: Tell Tonilia, in your capacity as guildmaster, that you want her to sell you things at cost, or pay you the full worth of something you sell her. Or tell Vex, 'Hey, why don't _you_ go do a job for _me?_" he said.

"They wouldn't do either of those things," Lull said.

"I know," he said.

"They wouldn't even consider it," Lull said. She paused.

"I'm sorry."

"Those bitches," Lull said, angrily. Then she laughed.

"It's an empty title," Sol said.

"I think I already knew that," she said. "I didn't want to believe it."

"I'm sorry," he said, kissing her.

"It's not your fault," she said. "I should thank you. For removing the wool from my eyes." She changed pace abruptly: "Can we get back to how to render armour useless?"

"Sure," he said.

"I wish to get better at fighting," she said.

Sol paused. "Were you not raised in Hammerfell?" he said.

"That's a racist question," Lull said.

"Says a woman who thinks all elves know magick," he said.

"But they do!" she said. "_You _do!"

He shrugged like, "Point proven." Then he said, "That's a cultural question, anyway."

"But you're right," she said. "Everybody's racist in Tamriel, so who cares. And Redguards do try to train everyone, martially. I never took to it." She grinned sheepishly. "I'm just poor at it."

"Did your parents try to train you?" he said.

"They did," she said. "When they gave up, they forced me to enlist myself for Divines' service, as an initiate with the Order of the Hour."

"Where were you born?" he said.

"Bergama," she said.

"I'm not familiar with that order," he said.

"It's part of the Akatosh Chantry," she said.

"Did they try to train you with weapons?" he said.

"The Chantry, no, but the Order of the Hour is militant—so yes," she said, grinning. Sol noticed that they were both still quite naked and in bed together. He enjoyed that they could speak while nude. He was enough accustomed to her that he didn't have to be fucking her at every instant, upon seeing her nude flesh. "They tried so hard, to get me good with weapons. Competent, anyway. Armour, too, but all I remember of it is feeling exceedingly hot and passing out, and being sweaty all the time."

Sol traced a line of sweat that originated from one of her breasts and went sideways, down to the bed.

"That's good sweat," she said. "I _love _that sweat. We earned it. I mean _un_pleasant sweat. Menial tasks and labor."

"Ah," he said. "You're not a priest in Hammerfell, are you?"

"Gods no," she said. "I ran away before long."

"Making you an . . . _outlaw_?" he said like the word was an obscenity. She laughed. She knew he didn't truly care. Certainly not while off-duty. "How old were you?"

"Not really," she said. "I didn't take anything that wasn't mine. They didn't pursue me. So, I think not. I'm confident they were simply glad to be rid of me." They both laughed. "Maybe fourteen, or sixteen. I got by on my own for a while, then some lesser Imperial knight caught me stealing and recruited me. Instead of taking a hand or somesuch."

Sol looked empathetic. "To . . . sex?" he said.

Lull giggled. "No, she was a woman!" she said.

"I didn't think Cyrodiil allowed women knights," Sol said. "Or for women to carry weapons. Or leave the house." They laughed. "I'm sorry for my presumption."

"No, you're right," she said.

"But . . . What?" he said.

"She was a rogue knight. Pretended to be a man," she said. "Fought in mêlées and everything. As a man."

"How'd that work out for her?" he said, genuinely curious.

"Well, so far as I know," Lull said.

"Did you part on good terms?" he said.

"Mostly?" she said. "I . . . she gave up on me, eventually." She saw a question in Sol's eyes and continued. "Martial skills. I have none. She took me for her squire."

"Oh," Sol said. "I think I assumed knights all just rape everyone."

"Most do," Lull said. "Almost all. Not this one, though."

"She tried to make you a knight?" he said.

"I think she would have, had I any ability in combat. Or luck with it. Or skill. Alas, I'm quite inept at fighting," she said.

"I'm surprised to learn that," he said.

"Why? Because I'm a Redguard?" she said, pretending to get very defensive about it.

"No," he said. "Because you're alive, in Skyrim, _and _in Riften."

"Oh," she said. "Some milk-drinkers get by." They laughed. "_Maven _can't fight. Jarl Laila can't either."

"True," he said.

"So, fighting people who wear armour," she said.

"Weapon choice affects this," he said. "Warhammers are more or less designed to ignore armour, for example, which is mainly why I carry one—dent it, break it, rupture organs beneath it, fracture joints, generally inconvenience. I can hit someone in full plate anywhere and the armour does them little good. Except to tire them quicker. And drown them in water. The spike on the back of my hammer will punch right through. My axe is mostly for parrying—"

"You can't defend with a weapon in both hands," she cut in.

"You can if you're not a fucking moron," he said. "I adapt to the situation. I carry a shield, too—because Maven and Laila make me. I dislike shields, they encourage passivity. Axes are good for other things, like slashing, against lightly-armoured targets, or unarmoured people, obviously. You can use bladed weapons against armour, but you need to be much better with them—sort of a barrier to entry. Or living, rather. Much more precise, less well-suited. You have to strike weak points, which vary by the harness or type of armour, and so on. Usually the neck and joints. Armpits, knees. Don't forget to use terrain, the environment, to your advantage as well. Especially if you're fighting someone in armour. Or at least, don't let your enemy use geography against you."

"You only wear light armour, no?" Lull said.

"And that only because it's required of me," Sol said. "For general patrols and such I'd prefer none. If I were knowingly heading into battle, or a knife fight, I'd outfit myself accordingly. As a watchperson, I rarely get to prepare for such specific situations. Anyway, I prefer not to be struck at all, rather than carrying dozens of pounds of weight hoping to deflect."

"Why don't you wear mail? Or plate?" she said. She wasn't arguing, she was curious about his decisions. "To stop arrows, or crossbow bolts."

"Nothing a person could reasonably wear around really stops those, short of inches of stone or wood. Or metal. Not one fired from a longbow or heavy crossbow, anyway," he said. "That's like trying to put out alchemists' fire with water."

"What's alchemists' fire?" she said.

"Never you mind," he said. "Heavy plate serves best to deflect. Try not to get hit, is still the essence of it. As I recall mail is meant mostly to prevent stabbing, to stop a blade or teeth. I probably mis-remember. I like maneuverability, though, and silence, so I mislike armour in general, certainly something heavy or loud. If I'm truly caught off-guard, armour won't save me. Same for anyone else. If I'm being shot at, armour or no, I'll cast a modified mage armour spell on myself, to deflect or stop fast-moving projectiles. Much better chance with magick than anything mundane. Moreover, I try to avoid fighting altogether now, if I can. I prefer making friends to enemies."

"That's wise," Lull said.

"Thank you," Sol said.

"Do you have any enemies in Riften?" she said.

"No," he said. "I'd happily kill either Dirge or Maul or the both of them, though."

"Why?" she said.

"Because they're huge assholes, in the worst way," he said. "I wouldn't do it unprovoked, though—only in self-defense. Or if Maven told me to."

"You're less bulky than them, but I think taller," she said.

"True," he said. "I am taller."

"Why not take their place?" she said. "One or both."

"I wouldn't, as Ragged Flagon's bouncer," he said. "I know what Dirge gets paid for that, and it's not a living wage. If I had to take that job for work, I'd sooner sell myself for sex at Winecocks. I'd _enjoy_ that. As well, it like as not wouldn't be horrible to be Maven's bodyguard. Boring, but not terrible."

Lull hissed like a cat.

"What?" Sol said. "He's a gossip."

"Do you want that job?" she said. "Maven's a powerful, attractive, rich woman."

"No, I don't want that job," he said. "If I did it'd already be mine. I was commenting only on the Maven's-muscle vacuum those two pieces of shit's murders would create."

"You really don't like them," she said, almost as a question.

"No, I don't," he said.

"What did they do to you?" she said.

"To me nothing, really," he said. "They pick on people. They're bullies. They're also both excessively rude and falsely proud. That's why I mislike them."

"Could you take them? In a fair fight?" she said.

"I _have_," he said. "And I'm insulted that you'd ask. Both of them at once, and each of them individually. More than once. Early in my time here Maul was very rude to me—it offended me at the time, but I've let it go; I only remember because my memory is excellent. I seem to recall Maven showing me favor and him brushing past me in that way where he's trying to knock you down. I didn't like that," he said, smiling bashfully.

"What did you do?" she said, very interested.

"I was devious at first," he said. "I repaid underhanded insult with like: Nobody was watching me, so I tripped him."

"How'd that work out for you?" she said, with an expression and tone saying she assumed he'd been very unsuccessful.

"Quite well. He broke his nose in the fall," Sol said.

"Holy shit!" Lull said.

"It gets better," he said, grinning. "Have you seen me move quickly?"

"I don't think so," Lull said. "But I have seen you move. Like a cat, you are," she said, enjoying it. "I'd believe it if you moved very swiftly indeed."

"I am quick, though I try not to show it," he said. "The less your enemies know about you the better. And those brothers were my _only_ enemies, early on. So I tried to seem clumsy if they were around. Not that they're so observant. Nobody in The Rift knew how fast I could be, back then. So as I said, I tripped Maul. This was in the greathall in Mistveil Keep, by the way, so in that moment I could name at least . . . " Sol looked away, recalling. " . . . ten witnesses who thought they saw everything who would've sworn under oath that I _didn't_ trip him. I digress; I tripped Maul, and he knew it, but as I said no one was watching me. Including him. There were not less than thirty people present, from Jarl Laila to her court to various supplicants, and watchpeople like myself. _No one _saw me trip Maul."

"You got him good?" she said, grinning.

He nodded and said, "So good he was the only one who knew, and no one believed him. Including the jarl _and_ Maven."

"How'd you trip him so well?" she said, rolling to a bedside table—jokingly—as if to get a roll of parchment and coal to take notes.

"Audacity. I suppose also strength and agility, but mostly having the daring to do it at all," he said. "I thought he'd see it coming and step around—I meant it as a warning, not fully intending to do permanent damage (though I wouldn't have, and didn't, hesitate to do such)—but he really didn't. I'd seen him pick on or otherwise harass or insult or brutalize or worse _scores_ of people by then, by the way, not only mine own self, or I wouldn't have done it. But I'd never seen anyone stand up to him, or simply not fear him. I never feared them, him or Dirge. I saw through them. They seldom get challenged, so even then they were mostly bluster. It occurred to me that night: Maul didn't see it coming _at all_, my trip. Well-tied string could've tripped him in that moment. But it didn't—my foot did."

Lull was engrossed in the story, laughing, leaning close to Sol. So close all he could see of her was her face. He forgot they were naked. "You said he broke his nose?" she said. "How'd that happen?"

"I've never seen a greater fall," Sol said, laughing—because he remembered it. "Not one that I both caused _and _saw play out in such quick succession."

"What happened!" she demanded.

"He took a terrible tumble, and a page and a chair and some cutlery with him," he said.

She laughed. He did too.

"There was this cacophony of failure," he said, reigniting his lover's lovely laugh. "On his part, alone. It was very loud, all this weight and metal slamming together and falling, in that huge echoey hall. Echoes. Maul was heavily armoured on top of his own muscle and fat, naturally. Which made his fall all the harder. He was so shocked only one of his hands came up in time to catch him, and it slipped off one of the tables, on his way down, sending a platter flying . . . into Maven's back, I think. A sneak attack." Lull laughed hard. "I think the fall hurt his pride more than any words ever could have. He looked like such a fool. He is one, though he doesn't oft so look it. Sometime later that night I heard Anuriel joking that Laila should take Maul on as her fool, because she's never had one. Maul's pride weighed him down so. He's a touch humbler now. Anyhow, he fell _right _onto his face. His nose must have hit first, before anything else, but I didn't hear the break. I forgot an important detail: After I tripped him—but none saw it—I backed off about ten feet. Because I knew no one was watching me. I haven't done anything so sneaky since, but he deserved it. So when he accused me of doing it, _no one _believed him, and they were all quite reasonable to believe so. It wasn't his word against mine, for them, it was plain _fact_ that I hadn't tripped him; I was too far away to have done it! Maul started interrogating people, bleeding, demanding they say I'd done it by some 'infernal elf magicks,' but with the jarl _and _Maven in front of them no one lied, because after that fall they couldn't fear him, or if they did they feared lying to Maven or Laila more. That was momentary, of course, but if you were there in that moment, you'd understand. Even young people had no fear for him; I think one of Laila's kids was small then. So _everyone _believed him either a bumbling fool or a drunk, and an over-proud liar besides. Even Maven. Who insulted him in front of everyone, adding to all his embarrassment and anger. I only wish Dirge had been present."

"Was his face bloody when he got up?" Lull said, excited.

"Oh, frightfully so, yes," Sol said. They both laughed.

"Serves him right," Lull said. From the way she said it alone, he could tell Maul had picked on her. Surely Dirge too.

"A few people gasped at that; surprised, I suppose. Maven was furious. Most of us—certainly myself—laughed all the harder," he said.

"How'd he know you did it?" Lull said.

"He's good at telling people apart, oddly," Sol said. "Even elvesies." Lull giggled at his made-up playful word. "I wore the standard kit of The Rift's watch at the time, so by my dress I looked like every other watchperson in the hold. Though I'm nigh a foot taller than all the rest of them, so . . . not that good. He remembered that. No—he remembered me because Maven had shown me favor at court. Then he shoulder-checked me. And as I said I acted rashly, I tripped him immediately thereafter. He knew it was me—well, he never could _rationally_ have known it was me, but he _believed _it tenaciously, and at once."

"So he's pouring blood as he stands, then what?" Lull said.

"He's sputtering from anger and shame as well," Sol said. "Furious, and I daresay crying a little—apoplectic. He looks around the room, sees me, remembers the sequence of events, and he's _certain _I did it. But I was _obviously_ too far away to have done it, all agreed."

"You denied it?" she said.

"Yes," he said, giggling. "But only to further enrage him. If in that moment Maven or Laila had asked me I might've just said I had; they didn't. It worked better than I could have imagined. He accused me of it and I got—I couldn't stop myself laughing, so I put on my professional face—not that anyone could see it, under my helm—or rather countenance, I suppose. I was polite and deferential. I said something like . . . 'Sir, I _wish_ I could trip a person half as well as you just tripped yourself, but I cannot; and alas, I'm several steps too far away to have so much as tried to trip someone of such mass.'"

Sol had to pause for Lull's laughter.

"That's when he started just grabbing people and shouting at them," Sol said. "Nobles too, not just pages or cupbearers or other watchpeople of less station than himself—and demanding they say they'd witnessed me doing it. But they hadn't. 'LYING ELF!' he kept bellowing, angrier each time. Maven had to stop him. She threatened to arrest him. I think the shame of that stopped him more than the irony that I was so close to him—as well, the only guard unafraid of him—that I probably would've performed the arrest. In his defense, he _did _stop assaulting those unfortunate enough to be in his proximity. Everyone but me. I'd argue I insulted him better than Maven did, but he could attack me openly and get away with it, and he actually respected her, so hers were worse. Dug deeper. I don't recall precisely what she said, only that it was harsh and disapproving. Disappointed. Sharp."

"What then?" Lull prompted.

"I believe his kettle began to boil?" Sol said. Lull laughed more. "He was hurt more by Maven's insults, I should think. He roared and charged at me."

Lull laughed loudly, surprised. "Did he hurt you?"

"Gods, but he tried to," Sol said, to more mirth from both of them. "He never lay a hand on me. I was very much ready for him to charge me, so when he did I waited for him to commit completely, then stepped out of the way, like I was simply shocked at his behavior—I, an innocent witness to his boobery." More laughter. "He ran _directly _into the hearthfire."

"You're kidding!" Lull said.

"Not at all," Sol said. "I only _wish _I'd've thought to heighten the story in such a way, or made that happen by my own choice. All I can think to do is tell you what happened. Everything that truly happened—at his hand—is _so_ much greater than fiction; I make an effort to add naught but context."

"Was that the end of it?" Lull said, laughing.

"Sweet Akatosh, no," Sol said, laughing. "Next he _caught fire_."

Lull burst into laughter. "Then what?" she said, seconds later when she could speak again.

"He charged me again," Sol said, laughing. "Burning."

"Clearly he didn't learn his lesson the first time," Lull said. "How'd you dodge him that time?"

"I stepped the _other _way," Sol said to more laughter.

"He didn't anticipate it?" she said. "I think I would have."

"No, he didn't," he said. "He was in a blind rage, understand. Not to mention the fire. He wasn't thinking, or capable of it. By assuming he'd anticipate me doing the same thing in a different direction, I'd already thought more than he did while he was still conscious."

"What was behind you the second time?" Lull said. "There's only one hearth in the greathall."

"A _wall,_" Sol said.

Laughter.

"Did he knock himself out?" Lull said, laughing.

"That would've spared him some shame. But no," Sol said. "Not yet. He thought he still had some face to save, which I suppose kept him conscious."

"He ran into the wall?" Lull said. "By himself? He did it to _himself_?"

"Yes," Sol said. "I seem to recall him trying to turn, or stop, but it made no difference. He hit the wall head-first. I don't believe his sight functioned fully for the rest of the day."

Laughter.

"Then what?" Lull said.

"I remembered my position, then, and suppressed my instinct, which was to put him down."

Laughter.

"My position was any other lowly watchperson then, though. No seniority, nor rank. So I started fleeing from Maul and calling out to my superiors—Captain Ullte, who was a serjant then, the lieutenant Markham, and before them to Jarl Laila, then Maven. My jarl didn't answer me, but deferred to Maven. Maven said simply, 'Don't kill my fool.'" Laughter. "I wish you could've heard the laughter, then. _Everyone_ was laughing, but Maul. And it only got louder; it was beautiful. I've never heard such mirth in Riften, before or since. All I had for weapons was standard-issue gear, sword and board and a shortbow. And a few steel arrows, of course. I wanted to kill him, but such wasn't a practical option for me, then. I want you to know, I _could_ have done it right then, but I held back, out of respect for Maven."

"You could've killed him, back then? Truly? _Maul?_" she said.

"That surprises you?" Sol said. "I've been in fighting shape like I am now longer than he's been alive. Though to answer your question, _yes_. He's a brawler at best—stupid broad muscle, not a soldier or a real fighter. No tactics. I could've ended his life in one move. Then _or_ now."

"_I _couldn't kill him!" Lull said. "He'd squash me in one punch. That's why I was surprised to hear that—I can't imagine it."

"You're tougher than you think," he said, shaking his head.

"Sol, finish the story!" Lull said. "I must know!"

"As my lady wishes," Sol said.

"Your lady _and_ your lover," she said.

"Yes," he said. "I'm a very lucky man."

"_I'm _lucky," she said. "Fuck! Finish the telling!"

"I ended that first fight quickly," he said. "I let the burning fool of an oaf charge me once more—"

"He was _still_ aflame?" Lull said. "No one put him out?"

"Oh, very much, yes," Sol said. Laughter. "No one tried to help him. It would've been foolish to, though; he probably would've attacked them for it if they had." Sol paused and stroked Lull's face. She closed her eyes briefly. "So, one more charge." Lull fluttered her eyes open. They both giggled. Sol resumed, "I side-stepped him again. But this time I followed him and readied my shield, such that whenever he stopped, or came about, I'd be at his side. He stopped before he hit a wall again—he nearly ran into another watchperson, instead. Or maybe a personal guard of the jarl's. All I could see then was him bouncing off somebody. I was ready; once he turned to relocate me, I hit him on the back of the head with my shield, so hard it splintered."

Laughter.

"Was that enough?" Lull said.

"To kill him? No," Sol said over his lover's laughter. "Though I wasn't trying to."

"It must have knocked him out," Lull said.

"It did," Sol said. "Everyone just laughed, for a moment. Then Ullte—my serjant then—told me to put him out. As he was still on fire." Laughter. "I told her, 'That man would've _killed_ me for something I did not do. A higher authority than you ordered me not to kill him. I will not save him." Then Maven said, "I'll give you fifty septims to put him out.' A few other people made to do it, but she yelled at them not to—she'd pay _them_ nothing for the work. So they did nothing." Laughter. "Then I said to Maven, 'I'd pay you a hundred to watch him burn.' I don't remember having heard her ever laugh harder than she did then. So she offered me a hundred to put him out. I said something to the effect of—and remember, the entire court was laughing through all this, so we both had to speak up—'Good lady Black-Briar, I'll pay you two hundred septims to let me enjoy this.'"

"She must've been so mad at you!" Lull said, laughing.

"She offered me his job that night," Sol said, smiling; Lull's mirth increased.

"No!" Lull said.

"That's the truth!" Sol said. "I swear it!"

"She liked you," Lull said.

"She still does," Sol said.

"Did you take the job?" she said.

"No," he said.

"Why not?" she said. "It must pay more than watch wages. And you'd have your own fancy bedroom, in her manse, I assume."

"It does, and I do anyway," he said.

"You what?" she said.

"That's a whole other story," he said. "Little or nothing to do with this one. Allow me to conclude this first."

"Very well," she said, pretending disappointment.

"I turned her down—politely—because I'd taken a good measure of Maven by then," he said. "I've known others like her. I don't dislike them, but if I'd taken the job the first time she offered it, she'd see paying me directly as owning me. I didn't want that. Also, she'd appreciate me more if I played hard-to-get."

"Were you driving up the price?" she said. "That's smart."

"No," Sol said. "I wasn't negotiating; I didn't want to work for her."

"Oh," Lull said. "Was that all, for that day?"

"Well, no, because Maul's not dead," he said.

"Did you put him out?" she said. "The fire."

"Fuck no!" Sol said. They laughed. "After I made that jest—insult, really; I only wish Maul had been conscious to hear it, for me to say it to his face, and that Dirge had somehow also been there—the 'I'd pay two hundred for you to let me enjoy this'—" Lull laughed more. "Maven laughed. Openly. I'd never seen her laugh before. Apparently, no one else had either."

"I still haven't," Lull said.

"You ask anyone who was there—except Maul—and they'll agree. This _all_ happened. And Maven _laughed_ that day. As she was still laughing, Jarl Laila finally said something: she said, 'Somebody quench that flame.'"

"You didn't do it then?" Lull said. "Not even for the jarl? She pays you."

"My captain pays me," Sol said. "No, Anuriel did back then. Her steward. Now the watch captain does it. That money's from tax collection, though; the people of The Rift pay me, really, not the jarl. Though both are my master, formally. If I'm honest, I was cocksure back then, but I didn't know Maul well. No—I knew him not at all. I didn't know he wouldn't berserk upon waking. I thought he'd be willing to kill nearly anyone—other than perhaps Maven herself—just to get to me, and as such I feared for the lives of everyone in that room, the greathall. More people came to watch the show as he tried to attack me. So no, I wasn't going to douse the flames about Maul's person then. He certainly earned them—who would I have been to deny him his earnings?" Lull laughed. Sol said, "Anyhow, when Laila gave that order—I should've said—she was looking directly at her húskarl. I forgot her name, but it wasn't a Snow-Shod, it was a similarly prickly but smarter Nord woman. Short, but always fought with an axe in each hand. That's not germane to this story. Laila's húskarl put the fire out. I watched. No—well, yes, but as I watched I stepped closer to Maven and asked where she would like her bodyguard to be deposited. As a function of my job, not because she'd shown me favor before. She said, 'In jail, of course, for assaulting an agent of our respected jarl.'"

"_No!_" Lull said.

"Oh yes," Sol said.

"I was going to say, Maul must've been waiting for you outside of the Bee and Barb after Maven offered you his job that night," Lull said.

"Not quite," Sol said. "Maul truly spent a night of agony in Riften Jail. All deserved. Earned, I should say. The next day she—Maven—sent for the master of restoration magick from the College of Winterhold, and also had Elgrim brew a box-full of healing and regeneration draughts for Maul."

"What did she give him for the pain?" Lull said. "I've been burned, a lot. It's extremely painful."

"Nothing," Sol said, smiling. "But I know Dirge brought him a few things, because in the . . . weeks it took the restoration mage to get there, because I gather Skyrim mages have never heard of teleportation—"

"I have," Lull said.

"You're not a mage," Sol said. "And . . . that makes one of you, anyway." They laughed. "In between then and when magick cured all Maul's burns, he wasn't screaming constantly in agony. I know that much. That was only for a few days, the screaming."

"Ah," Lull said. "So . . . did Dirge attack you that night?"

"He tried to," Sol said. "Down a bodyguard—and I can't imagine why someone of her wealth only keeps one bodyguard—Maven summoned Dirge from whatever dark corner he was in, and wouldn't leave the Keep without him. Dirge wouldn't have figured out what happened on his own, but I'm sure a _score_ of people told him the story before Maven left with him. That night she invited me to sup with her at the Bee and Barb. Her coin. I accepted, sure that the person who delivered the invitation to me was some catspaw Dirge had hired to walk me into a trap—but it wasn't, it was Maven, truly. I was off-duty so I came dressed normally, not in uniform. With my own weapons. No armour. I was sure Dirge would attack me, but I know arrogant Nords like him well enough to know he'd come at me himself, directly, not hire knives to come kill me while I slept or shoot me with poisoned arrows or the like. I truly respect that directness, by the way. It's brave, strong. I've been too caught-up in insulting the brothers to compliment their brand of . . . morals, I suppose. Or ethics, rather. I don't need armour against one opponent. And I knew enough about the Brothers Fuckface to know Dirge would be too proud to have an entire gang attack me at once—not that that many people like him, just that he could afford it because Maul gives him money—he'd do it himself. I respect that."

"How'd it happen?" Lull said. "When he attacked."

"Are you not curious about my dinner with Maven?" Sol said.

"No," Lull said.

Sol shrugged. "As you wish, my love. Maven left with both her sons as honorguards. Which I still think is odd. Nonetheless, she left first. I flirted with someone at the bar and left with her about an hour after Maven. Dirge was waiting for me outside. I was surprised Maven let him leave her proximity. But I bid the lady adieu. She offered to summon the watch for me, but I told her not to. She was kind. Dirge said he knew what I'd done. I asked him to tell me what I'd done, so I could confirm or deny it before he attacked me anyway—not to enrage him, but so I'd know if he knew I tripped Maul, or if he'd simply assumed it. I also wanted to keep the fight legitimate, because I thought there was a chance he knew nothing specific. He didn't know I'd tripped Maul. But the recounting—of me running around, insulting him and letting him burn, all that—enraged him. I really didn't want that. I wanted him lucid so he'd have to live knowing I'd beaten him fairly. Still cruel of me, but different reasons. Which matters to me somehow. No—that was another fight. Apologies. I wanted him lucid because I intended to kill him. Then Maul later, to eliminate the problem. A problem for me, but as I saw it Riften itself too. I still feel that way. Anyway I knew a fight when I saw it, but I thought he intended to kill me for shaming his kin. He didn't, though, he only wanted to hurt me badly, maybe take my ability to walk. He wasn't in such a rage as to attack me without discussing terms first."

"What were the terms?" Lull said.

"Almost none," Sol said. "I asked, 'Is this to the death?' He said no, only until I begged him to stop. I told him that wouldn't happen—I'd never beg him for anything. I think that came off as a boast, but I meant it as a statement of fact. Then he insulted me, because of course he did, but he also acknowledged something like, he'd submit if defeated—he said clearly, it was _not_ to the death. I was disappointed."

"Weapons?" Lull said.

"None," Sol said.

"A brawl, then? With that monster?" Lull said.

"I suppose," Sol said. "If that's what you call throwing endless sloppy-as-all-hells haymakers."

"What's a haymaker?" she said.

"A punch like this," he said, demonstrating the simplest strike ever. "It's forceful if you can land one, but your target you can see it from miles away."

"I see," she said.

"I let Dirge hit me once, as a compliment because he was honorable—respectful—enough to discuss terms. I was too angry to allow him more," he said. "I should have, for his pride, but I didn't. I was more violent back then."

"You didn't kill him," she said. "What _did_ you do?"

"I took him apart," he said. "Slowly."

"You dismembered him?" she said. "How slow?"

"I didn't dismember him," he said. She laughed. "I deconstructed him. When I fight I usually end it quickly. Same thing back then, though for different reasons—impatience, instead of now I simply have better things to do with my time. I took my time with Dirge. I could've knocked him out in one punch, but I didn't. I could tell he and Maul were important figures in low places here, in the power structure—in terms of dudebros with muscle, I mean, people who do dirty work; not among people with any political power or wealth or land, obviously. I wanted both Brothers Fuckface to know how much better I was than them. So I let the fight with Dirge go very long, so he would know he couldn't hit me if I didn't let him. For professional reasons, you should know, not personal ones, not pride. Though it must sound that way. And though Dirge challenged me in a 'no refusal' way while I was off-duty. I, personally, needed to know I could sleep at night, and not wake up with my throat opened for me. I needed them to fear me, but also to know I was _not _out to harm them—I wanted to be left alone, and specifically didn't want anything at all that they had. I needed them to know they couldn't and didn't intimidate me, or insult me freely. Not without huge consequence. I could tell I needed as much to do my job well, as a watchman, too. This all paid off much more than I expected it to—nearly everyone in the hold stopped trifling with me after I broke Maul and Dirge."

"Did you break them both that day?" Lull said.

"No, it took a few days," Sol said. "They're both very stubborn, heinously arrogant, prideful, and dumber than shit." Lull laughed. "And Maul was still in jail for a few more days. I respect their resolve," he said. "It took more than one fight, for each of them and the both of them at the same time, to submit. They forced me to fight the both of them, at once . . . twice, I believe. Maybe three times. They got on my nerves, like that; I didn't toy with them those times, just knocked them out quickly, in as few moves as possible, not allowing them to touch me. With Dirge that first night, though, I let him do most of the work—wear himself out throwing haymakers, for a _very_ long time. I waited until I thought he was ready to quit, then kept waiting, before I inflicted any pain on him directly."

"How'd you do that?" Lull said, intrigued.

"Before I say, you should know I was very angry at the time," Sol said. "I wanted to make a _life_ for myself in Riften, then. After the display with Maul in front of Maven _and _the jarl, I thought I'd probably learn the next day that I no longer had a job in Riften. Or perhaps was unwelcome in the city. I was upset. After I turned Maven down—_very _politely, respectfully; probably excessively so—I thought she might have me killed. She wasn't offended or angry with me at all, it's simply, I believed what people told me more then—that she was close to the Dark Brotherhood and so on. That night, after Maven left—on good terms with me—I thought, my quest here is over, I'm going to have to leave Riften tomorrow. So I was going to get good and drunk and get laid. Before I even got drunk, a good woman just fell into my lap—I wasn't trying, yet. A fellow elf, too, so I wouldn't have to explain away decades of racism or be an ambassador or some shit in addition to being the world's best lover." Lull laughed. She understood that he didn't believe he was that good. Sol continued, "A Bosmer, but still a mer. Then Dirge was in my way. I knew I could kill him just as easily as Maul, if not more so, if I wanted to, but then my new friend and soon-to-be-lover ran off, because she knew nothing of me, really, and much of the Brothers Fuckface. I was angry, then. So I took at least an hour letting Dirge weaken himself. Maybe two hours. No watchpeople interrupted us, because it's Riften. I let him get a hit in early so he wouldn't be nearly exhausted, then I'd let him land one and he'd find his reserves. If that makes sense. So I let him exhaust himself, which he seemed quite happy to do, and then waste all his reserves, too, before I did anything."

"Where'd you hit him?" Lull said. "About the head?"

"No," Sol said. "I knew better, by then. Maul and Dirge both have thick skulls. I'd wager their skulls are multiple times thicker than average, even among Nords, and their brains at best half the average size, for Nords. To compensate. Nature likes to keep things in balance."

Lull laughed. "Wow, that's some major shit-talking," she said. "Would you care to fight one of them before me? To verify all this?"

"I happily would, but they'd refuse. They won't fight me anymore," he said. "Which was my intent, more or less. They know better, now. They'll make excuses."

"Shit," Lull said.

"Ask around," Sol said. "Ask Maven or Laila, they may remember. Captain Ullte still remembers most of this well. She forgets what she saw herself and what others told her, but it's been a while. By human standards a long while. Dirge and Maul were stronger back then."

"I _will _ask around," she said.

Sol shrugged at that. "I'm serious—feel free to ask them directly, Maul or Dirge. They remember. Back to your point, about shit-talking: I've said worse to their faces. Both of them. Much worse. With them alone and in front of others. As with the first time I fought either of them, in Mistveil Keep with Maul. Oh, you asked where I hit Dirge: most everywhere apart from the head. Maul, I let hurt himself; Dirge, I did that and more. At first I used his force against him, such as by evading him and letting him punch a support pillar and bloody his hand, or charge into a door-knocker and ring his bell. I would've hit him in the head, but I was concerned that, to make him really feel a blow to the head, I'd have to put such force into it that the blow might damage his brain or kill him. Which is possible. So the only times I did anything to his head was to stun or confuse him, for whatever purpose, but with no lasting damage. Twice I let him back me up to one of the city's railways—the ones to keep people from falling into the lake; they were new back then—and then I shoved him over. Into the water. A few more times he landed on the catwalks below. I believe that hurt more than falling into water hurt his pride."

"Weren't you concerned he'd drown?" Lull said.

"No," Sol said. "I did that early on, because I knew once he was exhausted he might not be able to swim out. I wasn't going to knowingly kill him. Though if he did drown, from my overestimating his ability to swim in armour, I wouldn't have cared. Anyway, I don't remember striking him directly very many times. I didn't need to. To let him know how serious—and also strong—I was, I broke his right arm. Because he's right-handed."

"No!" Lull said. "He still uses that arm now. How—"

"Maven paid for magick to regenerate the bones I broke," Sol said. "I know not why; I don't think he's worth that cost. I told him that to his face. She had healed what I broke as well as the even-more bones that he broke on his own. He still had to carry his arm in a sling for some time. It healed almost entirely properly, though. He never learned to fight with his other hand. Nor tried to. That's the stubbornness."

"How'd you break it?" Lull said.

Sol grabbed one of her arms, saying, "I'll show you . . . "

She yanked her arm away, both of them laughing.

Sol shrugged, smiling. Lull put one of her hands on one of his thighs. "Limbs can only bend so far. And they're meant to bend a certain way, a certain range of motion. I bent his arm the wrong way, quickly and with a great amount of force."

"Did you break anything else of his?" Lull said.

"Not in that fight," Sol said. "I wanted the only bit of lasting damage I did to him—physically—to be the arm. His fighting arm. I wanted to break one of his legs, or a few toes, but I didn't want to rob him of the ability to run home and cry to mommy."

Lull laughed at that much harder than he expected her to.

"That's the truth," he said. "And another thing I said to him, later. In front of several witnesses, I think. I had that exact thought while I fought him."

"So you didn't break more than a few of his bones," she said. "Did he bleed?"

"A good deal, yes," he said. "From that injury—the bone protruded—and others he gave himself. I put a few powerful strikes into him, punches and kicks, and elbows and knees. I accidentally took a chunk out of one of his ears, that bled more than I expected."

"How'd you do that?" she said.

"I should say, a bannister did it," he said, "and I arranged the meeting, though by accident." Lull laughed rather hard. "I shoved him to disrupt his balance, he tripped on an apple and fell into a staircase with a sharp edge on the bannister—it wasn't sanded properly. And time hadn't worn it down. His ear caught on it somehow, and it couldn't take his weight, of course. I threw him down one time, and he didn't catch himself, so I broke his nose too, however indirectly. I kept considering punching him to break it, then that happened. A pleasing epiphenomenon."

"Why didn't you punch the nose?" Lull said.

"The bones of the nose can be driven up into the brain, which can kill," Sol said. "I would very much like to have killed him then, but I agreed not to."

**vi**

"I meant to ask you about this little knife you carry," Lull said, dragging her hands over Sol's bare chest. People said elves didn't have body hair—it was true. Lull was unaccustomed to such a smooth body. It felt natural somehow with his astonishing musculature. She felt herself getting more and more turned-on, touching him, watching him, drinking him in. "Your cock's hard again." She smiled from ear to ear.

"It's been that way for a while," Sol said. "I honestly don't understand why it's hard right now."

"You're like a teenager," Lull said.

"You mean that in a bad way, don't you?" he said.

"Only in how you're erect all the time," she said. "So, that knife?"

"Karambit," he said. "I don't know from where the design originates. Not Tamriel. If it somehow does come from here, though, my best guess is either Elsweyr, because it's designed like a tiger claw. That's racist. Or Argonia."

Lull giggled when he said, "That's racist." She said, "I don't know where the line is, between racist and basic generalized observation."

"Nor do I," he said. "I'll retrieve it."

He just went, didn't wait for her to move to let him up. She fell over, off-balance, laughing, saying, "I hate to let you leave, but I love watching you go."

"I think you've said that to me before," he said, trying not to feel self-conscious about how she could probably see his asshole. "If not, I have got it before from others." He grinned, but he wasn't laughing like she wanted him to be. "Men's posteriors aren't fun to look at."

"They are to me," Lull said. "Especially yours. Though I like the shoulders bit the best."

"Okay," he said, returning to bed with the little knife, in its sheath. Lull fixated on his cock as he walked. Still hard. It looked goofy in motion like that, bobbing and shifting. But then, her ass probably looked much sillier in transit, and her tits probably did at all times.

Sol climbed back into their bed, showing her the knife. "I've been wearing it on either forearm lately."

"You wear long sleeves most days," Lull recalled. "Is that why?"

"No, I just like long sleeves," he said.

"Is it a letter opener?" she said. It was very curved. She hadn't seen such curved blades since she was in Hammerfell.

He smiled and unsheathed the blade. It really did look like a cat's claw, though a very large one, curving forward to a very sharp-looking tip. It looked vicious. The biggest khajiit she'd ever seen, the moon-type they called a Cathay or whatever the fuck, had been a bipedal humanoid with a tail and a cat head like you most commonly saw in Skyrim, and its claws hadn't been as long as Sol's knife.

"More like 'flesh opener,'" Sol said. "I keep it as sharp as I can short of making it brittle, in case I have to use it against another blade, for whatever reason. The traditional design—I have a few of these—doesn't sharpen the back of the blade, but I wanted to try it out because why not. The main part of the blade—the inside here—" He gestured. "—isn't traditionally serrated, either. That's simply me trying things out. As a weaponsmith."

"Who made it?" she said.

"I did," he said. He handed her the knife, carefully, at her prodding jokey insistence. "The traditional technique is to have it in an icepick grip, with the blade downward, curving forward. Ironically opposite the way a claw would curve. It's best for weak spots, like muscles in the back of the knee. I think they come from sickles, technologically. The finger ring makes me leery of arm-bars or breaks, but it also makes it harder to disarm from you, or drop if it's slippery with water or blood, and in a punch it can function like brass knuckles. Anyway it's a backup weapon, mostly. I'm good at fighting unarmed. That's not self-aggrandizement, I simply am good at it—probably not master-level but maybe expert. Once in a while there are desperate moments in fights, live or die. Mayhap you're fighting one person and it's fine, but then four more show up. That's why I carry that knife. For making it quick. Not that I've ever had such a situation in Riften."

"Desperate how? I don't think I've had such a situation in . . . ever. But I'd want to be ready for it," she said.

"Mostly luck, I should think," he said. "Let's say some bandits are in the process of kidnapping me—sill in the 'toying with me' phase. They say if I defeat their brave champion who's happy to attack people from behind they'll let me walk away. Which is a lie, of course—really they want the entertainment of watching one of theirs butcher a defeated, tricked outsider. If I have a choice, which I won't, I'll fight the champion to buy myself time and find my footing, so to speak, with the rest of them. Who's strongest and most battle-crazed, who's most dangerous, who'd flee, and so on. Because you can't fight all twelve of them at once. Probably more, but maybe less if you're very lucky. I conceal this weapon for backup, so when they say 'the gods made us without weapons' but allow their champion both weapons and armour for whatever excuse—but me nothing, obviously—then I can fight without weapons, and learn more about the bandits and memorize the place's physical geography and power structure as best I can. Then I wait for an opening and seize it at once. You have to be ready for an opening at all times. Anyway I seize the opening, like catching a door before it closes. That's what this cruel little claw-knife is for. If the champion has light armour or less, this'll cut right through it. If medium, lots of openings. If it's heavy, it's still enough to pick apart the armour—at the throat or armpits or knees or groin, usually—or make them bleed until I can get a more effective weapon. I don't need the knife, though, I can break limbs and such too. Mainly it's for ripping flesh open. I've found very few people, or rampaging animals, can handle the shock of that. Massive tissue damage. I'm not sure if _I_ could. So I dispatch the champion in a stoke and then catch the door, so to speak."

**vii**

"I'll get the waterskin this time," Lull said, then crawled out of bed to go get it. He watched her. It was nice.

An internal clock in Sol's mind went off. "I need to check the time again," he said. "Meet you back at the bed in one," he said, getting up. Though he desperately wanted to watch Lull's body move, naked, from a distance. All the time they'd been together tonight, they'd been very close, physically, so close he often couldn't see more than a small part of her physical form, and he was usually so distracted pleasing her well that he hadn't taken a moment to enjoy the look of her. So he glanced at her, because of course he did, but then he got back to task—opening the Skyrim-and-Honrich-docks door out of Honeyside to check the light.

It was what he liked to refer to as blue time outside, light enough to see normally but without the big window into Aetherius open yet—no harshness, and also not bright enough to read by, but no longer dark. The time he always took Nomad out, so he and his dog partner could get a good long run in, after which he'd break his fast, and feed Nomad, then report to work on most days. Entirely coincidentally Captain Ullte hadn't ordered him to report for duty today until noon.

"Oh shit," Sol said aloud.

"What, did I break your cock?" Lull said, walking back to the bed with his rationed but mostly depleted waterskin. Sol supposed he didn't _really _need to pour some of it out to make Lull's wonderful pear-shaped ass glisten and reflect light while it bounced and jiggled.

"No," Sol said, closing the door. It smelled of sex in Honeyside, stepping back inside reminded him.

"It must be sore by now," she said.

"That's already come and gone," he said. "Bad news: I always take my dog out for a run at this time of day."

Lull looked at him apprehensively. "Do you have to?"

"Yes?" Sol said. "His name's Nomad. He depends on me." Her expression soured. "I'm sorry, love."

"I never want to let you leave," Lull said. "I love you." Jokingly, she opened a bedside drawer and pulled a sheathed dagger out of it, then pointed it—still sheathed—at him. "You can't leave."

Sol went to her and held her; she threw the knife away. Actually, he got close, then he pushed his rigid cock aside so he could embrace her, and then he held her. "I love you too," he said, kissing the top of her head. One of her hands grabbed his cock. He sighed. "I don't want to leave. But I have to."

"You should come live with me," she said.

"I'm interested," he said. "We should talk about it."

"Why, do you have another cunt waiting for you somewhere else?" she said. He wasn't sure how much of it was serious and how much was joke.

"No," he said. "You're all I want. I'm concerned you'd get sick of me if we saw that much of each other."

"I've already seen all of you," she said. Her hand, which he refused to look at, started stroking his cock slowly. "And I'm not sick of you at all."

He groaned at the attention and how much she liked him. At least at this moment. He pushed her hand off—a few more seconds of that and he wouldn't be able to leave without fucking her some more. "I meant—we haven't lived together. Over a long time, that's different."

She pulled her head back, and recalled her hand. She was serious and looked sad; she said, "Are you saying you don't want to move in?"

"I _do _want to move in," he said. "Let me start over. Yes! I'd be delighted to come live with you. Here, I presume. If you really want me to, I'll do it. I'm . . . anxious I'll go run with my dog, come back, and suddenly you'll hate me and say you never want to see me again."

"You think I'd do that to you?" she said. "I love you."

"No, I _fear _that would happen to me," he said, and kissed her. "It's irrational. I love you." He caressed her face. She leaned into his hand. "I'm sensing trust problems in both of us. I had no expectations of this night, when I came here, and suddenly my life's different. Let's try this—and tell me if you want to or not—I'll be out with my dog for about an hour: a half-hour for the run, then maybe twenty minutes to eat and bathe. I round up in case whatever random encounter comes up in that time. I'd like to meet you again right after that. At a location of your choosing. What do you think?"

"Are you sure you have to leave? Can't you have someone else check on your dog?" she said.

It hurt him to answer honestly: "No. I'm so very sorry. I can't. Nomad doesn't like anybody else. Certainly doesn't trust others. I have to do it myself."

"Okay," she said. "I feel rather gross with sweat, myself. Particularly the armpits. I should bathe too. And . . . check on Iona." She closed her eyes, processing. "You've got one hour. And if you're late I'll never forgive you," she joked.

They laughed. "Where do you want me to meet you?" he said.

"Right here's fine," she said. "You can let yourself in. Is Nomad house-trained?"

Sol smiled. "He is, yes. And, agreed. Honeyside, one hour. While we're apart let's consider living together. If you still like me an hour from now. I want to do that—but also, a day ago I thought you considered me an enemy. So this would be . . . fast. I hope we both feel the same in an hour. But I won't hold it against you if you've reconsidered."

"You talk too much, my love," Lull said, kissing him.

He kissed her back.

They embraced.

"One hour starting when I'm done dressing," he said, running to gather all his belongings.

"Very well," she said, watching him dress.

Somehow it went exactly as planned.

**viii**

Lull and Sol fucked for the nonce.


	8. Amativ

**VIII: Amativ**

_Tirdas, 21 Sun's Height, Year 202 of the Fourth Era_

Solitar's best friend in Riften, a sex worker at The Lonely Stag—infamously better known as Winecocks—Vannayne had insisted he meet her to talk shortly before he'd already planned to meet with his intensely close lover, Tluldir, the Thieves Guildmaster. Sol had a lot of history with Vannayne; when she first moved to Riften years ago, he'd fallen genuinely in love with her very quickly and she'd turned him down. Politely. As an official thing, anyway; they still saw each other very frequently. A few months into her Riften life, after things for her calmed down, she'd begun summoning Sol personally just to get a good honest fuck in once in a while. She didn't charge for it; at first, she paid him for it, a city watchman moonlighting as her own personal prostitute. Eventually, they no longer exchanged money between them. Things had been great until Sol & Lull happened, roughly three weeks ago. As their discussion had revealed, only now that Vann couldn't have Sol did she want him.

So when Lull arrived—wearing, unusually, an Amulet of Mara—to have dinner with Sol, and he and Vann were still speaking, it was awkward. Lull asked Vann to leave. Vann obliged but looked about to cry, something Sol had never seen her do. She always kept her emotions guarded and extremely close to herself. He consoled her concisely and got back to Lull as soon as he could.

"I'm sorry about that," Sol told Lull, who met his return with another big kiss and another big, warm, long hug. "We used to be sort of a thing."

"Oh yeah?" Lull said.

"Yeah," Sol said. "You don't know who she is, do you?"

"I don't, but I can see she has the biggest fuckin' tits in Riften," Lull said—ridiculing.

"That's one of her sobriquets," Sol said. "Except 'in Skyrim,' not just Riften. Her name's Vannayne. If you're curious about me and her you can ask around. With people who work here, especially."

"I'm not curious," Lull said.

"Okay," Sol said. "I—don't want to hide anything from you."

"I appreciate that very much," Lull said, holding his hands. She saw his eyes notice over again her Amulet of Mara. Nestled between the tops of her breasts in the most revealing clothing she had that was also appropriate for wear outside the house. "I accept you. All I care is that I have you now. And you have me. I don't wish to dwell in the past."

"Understood," Sol said. "I feel the same."

"Let's get dinner," she said.

They did.

Over dinner, they mostly discussed their work days. Sol kept believing she would get tired of hearing about all the weird but somehow samey random events that made up his days, but even now, she seemed to enjoy his recap. The biggest events of the day had been that somebody had poured poisonous slime all over Grelka's stand in the market because they thought she cheated them (the watchperson in charge of the investigation considered everyone who'd ever bought from her a suspect), and a group of Imperial peasants traveling to a village in Argonia called Choefalls that no one had ever heard of begged for help because, they said, they'd been given bad toadstools in Cheydinhal and wound up in Riften and were all convinced that it was the eighty-seventh year of the Fourth Era, _not_ the two-hundred-and-second, no matter how many people corrected them. Sol always enjoyed hearing about Lull's work days, of whatever Thieves Guild stuff or other things she'd been up too. Apparently a lot of paperwork and sitting at a desk lately. Didn't sound fun. He felt like he was _always_ getting to know her better. There was always more.

Lull couldn't put it off anymore—the reason for their dinner date tonight had her anxious, and putting off bringing it up was starting to distract her. He could tell she wanted to talk about something, but also that if he asked her what she wanted to talk about she wouldn't want to talk about it yet. She said, "I have to tell you something weird."

"As you wish," Sol said, paying full attention to her. Still.

"I think I want you to be the only person I fuck for the rest of my life," Lull said, in a rush to get all the words out.

She saw in his eyes that he pieced together and understood what she meant at once. It had sounded better in her mind. She loved that he participated in what she actually said, that her words mattered, that he paid attention, but that he also understood what she meant. Smiling, he said, "Whatever makes you happy. As I've said, my only concern is you growing bored with me."

"I'm in my thirties," she said. "I know what I like. And don't. And it's time for me to settle down. Somewhat. We've been together almost every day for near a month, and every time is still wonderful. Marvelous. It keeps surprising me, when I think about it. No, I'll not grow bored with you. I may occasionally want to bring other people into our bed, such as another man or another woman, or ten more men, but those will be exceptional circumstances, and only for variety. And fun. I may want you to go fuck someone else, then come back and tell me everything about it. Or maybe I'll want to do that, then tell you. But openly, honestly, with you, Sol. And . . . you and I. I want that."

"I'm quite comfortable with all of that," Sol said, smiling. "I want that too. You and me."

They stood and kissed.

"Does that have anything to do with why you're wearing an Amulet of Mara?" Sol said.

Lull looked abashed. "Oh. Yes. Will you marry me, Solitar the Naughty?" She meant it, but she was also laughing. Happily.

"I will, Tluldir the Swift," Sol said, also sincere, also laughing.

They shared a very long kiss, giggling, happy.

They sat down, holding hands.

"Sol," Lull said.

"Yes," Sol said.

"I've done everything there is to do in Riften, and I'm completely sick of it," Lull said.

Sol's eyes shot up, someplace behind Lull on her right.

"Be right back," he said, on his feet and running even as he spoke toward whatever he'd seen.

Lull turned around in her seat, then stood in alarm:

Sol was running silently (no armour) at a tall khajiit man—one of the more human-looking types; perhaps an Ohmes, she thought—armoured in scale who was holding up a morningstar, cocked back in his arm, to strike an unsuspecting Argonian woman sitting at the bar. The khajiit meant to strike the Argonian woman in her back, too, the coward. Though if Lull were going to kill someone, she'd go about it in the same way—a sneak attack to catch her target flat-footed, defenseless.

Sol caught the khajiit completely by surprise, grabbed the man's weapon-arm at the elbow and slammed the joint closed, so fast and with such force that the khajiit didn't resist it and that the khajiit's morningstar slammed hard into that cat-person's own face, hard.

"By order of the jarl, stop right there!" Sol shouted at the khajiit and two other people Lull hadn't even noticed, an Altmer and an Argonian—both bearing weapons, neither wearing armour. They appeared to also be there to kill the other Argonian at the bar, as the khajiit was. Frankly, if Lull saw Sol permanently fuck up a fellow Guild thief's face with their own weapon and then ordered her to halt in _that _voice, she would've halted, Dragonborn or not. She hadn't known she was Dragonborn for long.

The other two—hired killers?—froze in place, but one of them tried to see the job done; the Altmer fired the crossbow he was carrying.

The Altmer was clearly drunk, and had apparently aimed at one of the multiple mirror-versions of their target that he was undoubtedly seeing, as his bolt hit nothing but the arm of some server behind the bar, who yelled in shock and dove to the floor, and a few shelved bottles of alcohol.

"Oh, fuck, that's Horse-Killer!" the third killer said—the Argonian. A woman, to Lull's surprise. She was armed with an orcish mace, but she wasn't moving. Lull had forgotten that nickname of Sol's, Horse-Killer.

"No!" the Altmer cursed, frantically reloading his crossbow.

As the Argonian recognized Solitar and called out one of his nicknames, Sol himself spun around the apparently blinded-with-blood (if either of his eyes were still intact, that is) khajiit, elbowing him in the face and then shoving him at the Altmer.

The blood-blind khajiit dropped his morningstar and knocked the Altmer over in a pile. The crossbow bolt the Altmer had been trying to load clattered to the floor.

Sol rushed the Argonian woman and push-kicked her in the belly as she raised her mace to strike him.

The Argonian woman lost her breath in a loud huff, stumbling backward toward a support pillar—one Sol took advantage of, next kicking her high in the face and launching her into the pillar. To its credit, the pillar didn't break, though Lull heard a wooden crunch when the back of the Argonian's head slammed into it. She grunted and toppled to the floor, like as not unconscious.

"Need help, Sol?" some woman in the mêlée's growing crowd of onlookers asked.

He answered with actions instead of words. The Altmer was slow to rise, but the khajiit had already done so and pulled another weapon, a dagger of Cyrodiilic design that looked to be made of steel. At least one of the khajiit's eyes still worked, because he'd relocated the helpless woman at the bar he was apparently there to murder and was charging at her.

Sol spun around and kicked the charging khajiit in the chest hard enough to stop his charge and get his attention. The poor Argonian kill-target at the bar had stood, but was frozen in place, her eyes wide.

Lull couldn't fight and had no weapons on her apart from her glass dagger—the one Sol had made her—but got it out and went to back up her man anyway.

The khajiit turned to Sol and swung his dagger wildly. While Lull looked away to unsheathe her dagger, Sol must've unsheathed his little claw-knife, because she saw him use it against the khajiit: Sol grabbed the khajiit's blade-bearing hand at the wrist and twisted it around so the khajiit couldn't move his arm as he wanted to, and then Sol slashed across the khajiit's face with his claw-knife. The khajiit wore scale armour but had nothing on his head or protecting his face. The khajiit howled in pain.

The Altmer was nearly standing.

Sol stabbed his knife _through_ the khajiit's hand, the one it had its dagger in. The khajiit released his blade. Sol twisted his knife, still inside and also through the khajiit's palm, in about a half-circle, then tore it out. Blood poured from the ragged hole in the khajiit's hand; the khajiit screamed and held his maimed hand, dropping the dagger.

Sol walked around the khajiit, who was falling to his knees, and almost absent-mindedly slashed the khajiit across his throat and then kneed him in the face. Sol left him; the khajiit left Sol's knee spattered with blood. The khajiit brought both hands to his throat, then brought one away, looked at it and seemed surprised to see blood on it.

Sol silently charged the Altmer, who was still trying to load another bolt into his crossbow. Not an experienced wielder. Sol used his arm with the little claw-knife in it to elbow the Altmer in the face, then brought that arm away sharply—slashing the Altmer's face with his knife, leaving a thin but dark, deep, red line trailing behind it on the Altmer, from forehead to cheek. The knife blade appeared to have ruined the Altmer's left eye. The Altmer covered that eye socket with one hand and used the other to feebly swing his unloaded crossbow at Sol's head.

Sol caught the crossbow with his free hand and brought it high, slashing the Altmer's belly with his claw-knife, then slamming the crossbow into the Altmer's face, solidly. That stunned the Altmer, who did nothing but reel backward a step, clinging on to the crossbow. The Altmer's free hand stopped protecting his eye socket, revealing a sheet of blood that covered most of that side of his face. Sol smashed the Altmer with his own crossbow a few more times, in the face, each time fast and hard, before letting the missile weapon clatter to the floor. The Altmer had relinquished it, though Lull hadn't noticed when.

In the Altmer's defense, Lull couldn't imagine fighting against anybody whilst drunk, much less The Rift's best watchman.

Sol seized the Altmer's head by his long hair—which surely had been beautifully radiant at some point, but now looked like it had gone unwashed for months on a body living poorly in the Ratway—then used one of his legs to sweep both of the Altmer's out from under him. As the Altmer fell, Sol threw the man's head down, and his face hit the floor before the rest of his body. His face impacted so soundly Lull wasn't surprised that the man stopped moving once he landed.

"I'm good," Sol said to whatever woman had called out to him seconds ago. "Thank you, Kirsta." Sol strode to the bar, checking on the status of the three apparently hired killers. All motionless. The khajiit looked dead, splayed out on the floor with a large pool of blood growing rapidly under his neck. Lull thought the Argonian and the Altmer were still alive.

"Are you harmed, m'lady?" Sol said to the horrified Argonian woman at the bar, the murder-target. She was wearing a priest's robes, but she didn't look like any priest. She wore no holy amulet.

"I'm fine," the Argonian priest? said. Her voice was scarcely above a whisper.

Two Argonian women, Lull noticed. One was the target to be killed, one was among the three would-be killers. It was hard to think such association a coincidence.

"Will you stay here, please? I'd like to speak with you about this," Sol said to her.

"I will," the priest said—still at almost a whisper. She sounded like she had to struggle to speak at all.

"Thank you," he told her, then looked around at the crowd of Winecocks-goers, onlookers. "Anybody have rope with them?"

A woman wearing what Lull imagined a sex-dungeonkeeper would wear—skimpy, revealing black leather akin to undergarments, high-heeled thigh-high black leather boots—threw Sol a large length of silk rope. "_I_ have!" she said gleefully.

"I need to cut this, Calda," Sol said, catching it. The coil looked fifty feet long.

"Go right ahead," Calda the sex-dungeonkeeper said. "I'll send the jarl a bill."

"I'll sign off on that," Sol agreed, smiling privately, finding the rope's halfway point and slicing it in two there. Then he cut those two halves into quarters. All with his claw knife, which was evidently extremely sharp—he looked like he put no effort into cutting the rope. Lull had seen it before, but she didn't remember it seeming so sharp.

Lull looked up and saw Vannayne watching Sol, very closely, from one of the place's balconies.

Sol dragged close together and hogtied the Argonian and Altmeri attempted murderers. Sol was fast with it and rendered clean, tight knots of a type Lull didn't know. They looked so small she got close to inspect them.

"Kirsta, will you collect weapons, please?" Sol said toward the dispersing crowd of onlookers. They all gave the scene of violence a very wide berth.

"Yes sir," she said. She was in plain clothes like Sol was, not her watch uniform, but she still wore a sheathed longsword on her belt. She came over and retrieved weapons. Lull had heard that name of a city watchperson before, yet she couldn't remember this woman. Maybe it was because she wasn't in uniform. Or a helmet which hid her face

Lull remembered she had her dagger out and sheathed it before more watchpeople could show up, then went to Sol. "Is aught amiss, my love?" Lull said to Sol, rubbing her hip against him like a cat. She didn't know what gave her the idea, but it sounded great and felt nice.

"Not really, my love," Sol said to her, rubbing his hip—well, thigh—back against hers. "But thank you for asking." He looked to the bar. "Cheldte," he called, "will you get Anina over here? I'd like to tell her what happened."

"She has the night off," Cheldte said. He was a Redguard Lull had never noticed in Winecocks before. Though she hardly spoke with bar staff.

"Oh," Sol said. "Are you managing tonight?"

"Yeah," Cheldte said.

"Did you see any of that?" Sol said, gesturing at the three bodies and general mess around them.

"I saw most of it," Cheldte said. HIs arms were both uninjured, no blood; some other bartender was the collateral violence.

"Is Bjens all right?" Sol said.

"I believe he's unconscious," Cheldte said, looking toward the floor beside him.

"From . . . embarrassment?" Sol said, walking to the bar and leaning over it.

"I don't know," Cheldte said, chortling. "He seems fine."

"I agree," Sol said. "Still—if you can when he wakes up, please take him to a healer. Tell them what happened. If they still charge send me the bill."

"Okay," Cheldte said.

"Tell Anina what happened too, when you next see her, please."

"Oh, I will," Cheldte said, looking forward to the telling.

"Kirsta, did these three criminals hurt anyone on their way in?" Sol asked his fellow watchperson.

She was done collecting weapons and loosed crossbow bolts. "None I know of," she said. "I saw the cat on their way in—they didn't get their weapons out until they were close. He looked purpose-driven on the way in, but I thought his purpose was getting his pokey dick wet."

"I know you would've done something if you thought it necessary, serjant," Sol said.

Sol told Lull this next bit would be extremely boring and procedural, but it was all fascinating to her and she wanted to watch it happen: Sol spoke with the attempted murder victim, whose name turned out to be Macedomeda, also called the False Priest by other Ratway-dwellers. Lull hadn't been in the Ratway much lately; Macedomeda had moved in since Lull frequented the area. Macedomeda was clearly mad, but seemed lucid as she spoke with Sol, even until after the interview was done. Then she started saying she was, "The new god come to cleanse all your sinners," at the top of her lungs. Sol asked if she wanted to press charges for attempted murder and she said no and resumed raving, so Sol asked her to leave the establishment or he'd have to charge her for disturbing the peace. She said "okay" like she'd learned her lesson and left peacefully, but a few seconds after she was outside and the door closed, Lull heard her start her ravings anew. She was like Heimskr of Whiterun without the charisma. Sol heard her too—he and Lull made eye contact.

"Damn," he said. "If she doesn't stop somebody else'll arrest her."

Lull laughed.

"You didn't know who she was?" Sol said.

"Never heard of her," Lull said.

"She used to . . . preach up here. Something different every day. She's well-known to the watch. Those of us who've been here more than a year, anyway," Sol said. "Are you . . . not bored out of your mind yet?"

"This is fun!" Lull said. "I get to see my hubby at work _and_ I'm not being arrested. I enjoy it."

Smiling but still perplexed at her lack of boredom, Sol could only shrug. "Okay. I'm going to haul these two to jail," he said. "You're welcome to leave at any time, wife, but you're welcome to accompany me if you'd like."

"What'll you do with the corpse?" Lull said.

"Jarl Laila has a mortician who'll dispose of it," Sol said. "She may want that man brought to the Hall of the Dead, for Alessandra, but she typically doesn't honor criminals so. I'll sell his equipment off at cost, maybe to Balimund, then give that gold to the treasury." He looked to Cheldte, who was watching him. "Do you mind if I leave this here?" He gestured at the khajiit corpse's blood pool and spots of blood from the two he'd taken alive. "I need to process these two." He gestured at his prisoners.

"Yeah, you're good," Cheldte said, reappearing from behind the bar with a brush, a bucket spilling water, and a mop.

Sol conjured the same invisible slab he'd carted her to Riften Jail with beneath the hogtied Argonian, the hogtied Altmer, and the dead khajiit, who was still bleeding. Sol peeled off his shirt and wrapped the khajiit's weeping neck wound with it—to avoid spilling blood.

"I could—" Cheldte began saying, finding a towel behind the bar. By the time he found one and looked up Sol had already applied his shirt. "Never mind."

"I like it when you have your chest bare," Lull said to Sol.

"Thank y—I mean, you're welcome, wife," he said. He looked somehow barbaric, shirtless and with his normal carry weapons—the short-shafted warhammer and the Bosmeri-style war axe—all the more visible on his belt, and blood smeared on his face and neck. "I'm going to head to jail—at a pretty quick pace," he told Lull.

"All right," she said.

"Did you hear that, Kirsta?" he called to the Nord watchwoman. She looked tough, Lull noticed upon actually looking at her; like a proper shield-maiden of Skyrim.

"Roger that, Sol," she said.

"I'll send your way the first other watchperson I see," he said, and left.

He moved at a near-running pace across town to the jail. He told the first watchperson he came across to report to Kirsta in the Lonely Stag.

"Fight at Winecocks?" the man, of course a Nord, said.

"Verily," Sol said.

"Where's your shirt?" the watchman said.

Sol pointed to the dead khajiit's neck.

"Did you finish the fight, sir?" the watchman said.

"I did," Sol said.

"Quickly," Lull said.

The guard looked at her. She couldn't see his face, but she was somehow certain he looked like his mind had gone empty. "Guildmaster," he said, inclining his head.

The story of the attempted murder was that the mad Argonian, the False Priest, was a debtor who'd repeatedly defaulted on loans she'd taken from unsavory characters—and when you called someone in Riften "unsavory," it said a lot—until one of them, whose name the False Priest couldn't recall, decided it was enough and she was to be made an example of, and so had sent three hired knives to go murder her at a time and place of their choosing.

Solitar had recognized two of the three hired knives before he struck any of them: the dead khajiit was Dar-Sinnir the Blooded, a B-level bandit infamous throughout the Rift for his violent tendencies, a man with a bounty out for him dead or alive, worth almost as much dead as alive. Sol would be collecting the bounty. Sol said he would've preferred to turn him in alive, but thought allowing the khajiit to live when he still had to neutralize at least two other people intent on murdering someone else in cold blood was too much a risk. The Argonian woman hired knife was Nikatea—the False Priest didn't know her at all—the very same criminal suspected of murdering Keerava, The Bee and Barb's innkeeper, a few days ago.

Lull felt strange that Sol hadn't told her directly that there was a suspect in Keerava's murder. She and he had gone on a dinner date together at the Bee and Barb two days ago, specifically there to show support for Keerava's brother Talen-Jai, the Bee and Barb's barkeeper and now also the place's sole manager, proprietor and innkeeper as well. Talen-Jai had said all was forgiven between himself and Lull.

Sol got the rest of the story from Nikatea about an hour later, when she woke up. She swore she was innocent of Keerava's murder, framed for it by a famous murderer called Cyllerva Pineshade. Nikatea said Cyllerva had bribed with a blowjob another city watchperson, Alarne the Harrier (also called Alarne the Tail-Chaser and Alarne the Fuck-Boy), to lie and say he'd witnessed Nikatea fleeing The Bee and Barb with a bloody dagger at the approximate time of the murder. Sol said he'd appreciate some evidence but that Nikatea's story was more credible than Alarne and Cyllerva's because Nikatea was pretty inept in a fight whereas Cyllerva, famously, just loved killing people, and generally inflicting pain on others and herself.

"You wouldn't expect it, but Cyllerva's actually pretty nice if you meet her," some watchman Lull didn't know said.

"Only to men," Lull said. She'd met Cyllerva a few times.

Sol smiled.

Nikatea corroborated Macedomeda the False Priest's story, and added further detail. A Nord woman who called herself "Caretaker" had hired Nikatea to kill Macedomeda, for twenty-five septims before and fifty after the deed was done. The other man in Nikatea's murder party was Cyremon—a general thug with delusions of grandeur, in her opinion.

Sol told her he appreciated her politeness, openness and cooperation. He wouldn't let her go with a warning, though; he'd recommend minimal punishment, though the sentence was up to the jarl, ultimately. He wouldn't recommend _no _punishment—or simply release her—because she'd still gone to Winecocks with the intent to kill someone in cold blood, and she'd still attempted to assault him and, most importantly, he'd been off-duty on a date with his fiancée and she'd interrupted that and inconvenienced his woman.

Lull led her man home with her by the hand and gave him a new title—Solitar, Hero of Winecock—and then fucked him silly.

A few days later, Tluldir and Solitar got married in Riften's Temple of Mara. Most of Winecocks' staff were invited, as were most of the city's prominent personalities. Most of the jarl's court, and the jarl herself, and her son she liked; Maven Black-Briar; most of Winecocks' staff; and most of the city's watchpeople attended the wedding, in addition to many others, including about twenty wood elves Lull had never seen but who seemed very familiar with Solitar, packing the temple. The next day, Maramal proudly told Lull and Sol that he'd never experienced so many people making love at once in the temple.

Lull and Sol had seventeen children together.


End file.
